TESTIMONY OF NORMAN KNOPF, ATTORNEY, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

Mr. KNOPF. I do.

Mr. Chairman, before I am asked questions I would ask the committee's permission to make a statement of two or three sentences. The CHAIRMAN. I can not hear you.

Mr. KNOPF. Mr. Chairman, before I answer questions, I would like permission to make a statement of just two or three sentences if I may. My name is Norman Knopf. I wish to put on the record that I am here pursuant to a subpena issued by this committee. I also would like it put on the record that I am presently employed by the Department of Justice, but any knowledge that I have regarding Judge Carswell was learned by me 2 years prior to my joining this Department and I have gained no knowledge nor have I had any contact with Judge Carswell while working for the Department.

Thank you.

Senator TYDINGS. Would you give your educational background, Mr. Knopf?

Mr. KNOPF. Yes, sir. I attended Cornell University where I received an A.B. in 1961. I then went on to Columbia Law School, where I was on the Law Review and received an LL.B in 1964. Thereafter in the fall of 1964 through the fall of 1966 I clerked for a Federal judge in the southern district of New York, and thereafter I joined the Department of Justice in the civil division, appellate section, where I am currently employed. I write briefs in civil matters, contracts, torts, that type of thing and argue cases in the U.S. court of appeals. Í am a member of the bar of the State of New York, the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the bar of most of the U.S. court of appeals, the one exception being the first circuit. I presently live in Bethesda, Md., with my wife and two children.

I have a son 2 years old and a daughter 3 weeks old.

Senator TYDINGS. Mr. Knopf, I want to direct your attention to the summer of 1964. Could you tell the committee whether you were engaged in bringing legal assistance to civil rights workers?

Mr. KNOPF. In the summer of 1964 I volunteered to work with the Law Students Civil Rights Research Council. This was an organization of law students who wished to assist civil rights lawyers. Being law students or students recently graduated such as I was, not admitted to the bar, we knew we could not practice law, but we volunteered to assist full fledged lawyers who were practicing law. As such I was assigned to northern Florida to work with attorneys for the Lawyers Constitutional Defense Committee. Mr. Rosenberger, who was just here, was one of those attorneys whom I assisted. Mr. Lowenthal, who, I read in the paper, was before this committee, was also an attorney I worked with.

I was down in Florida during August, and a little bit into September. I stayed there constantly, while the Constitutional Defense Committee lawyers came and went in 2 week periods.

Specifically we were assigned, the lawyers and my assisting them, to work with a CORE voter registration project to register black people in the northern area of Florida. Florida had no literacy requirement for registration. A person merely had to show up at the

registration desk and give his name. The CORE volunteer workers, many of whom were from Florida itself, and some of whom came from the North, would assist black people in getting to the registration place to register so that they could vote in the Federal elections scheduled in November.

As I heard Mr. Rosenberger testify and as this committee has heard, the project met with a great deal of hostility by the white people of the area. There were assaults. There was a bombing. There was a shooting, and so on. There were frequent arrests.

Specifically with the arrests, this is where the Lawyers' Constitutional Defense Committee attorneys came in, and tried to defend project workers that were arrested or remove the cases. As an assistant to the attorneys, I was sort of a jack of all trades. I typed papers, filed papers served papers, ran errands, kept our office a one-desk, onetypewriter office in a boiler room in a cellar. I also was able to accompany the attorneys in many instances in their given rounds and duties to observe what happened.

Senator TYDINGS. During the time that you were in Tallahassee working with civil rights workers, did you have occasion to work on a case involving a man named Wechsler and some other students who were arrested?

Mr. KNOPF. Yes, sir. That was my first big case that I had some contact with down there. Wechsler and some other voter registration workers were arrested for trespassing while going to black tenant farmers and asking them to come and register to vote.

Senator TYDINGS. Was that the incident just described by Mr. Rosenberger?

Mr. KNOPF. That is correct, and so I will not repeat what has already been said, except to say that I prepared under Mr. Rosenberger's direction the papers for removal by typing them out, and I also filed the papers in Judge Carswell's court. We filed the removal papers, and I was also with Mr. Rosenberger when he went to the State court after the removal papers had been filed to inform the State court officials that under Federal law they had no jurisdiction to continue to trial as the case had been removed.

Senator TYDINGS. Why did you try to remove the case?

Mr. KNOPF. As I stated, the town, the whole general area was extremely hostile. We were harassed by the police. We were harassed by the white populace in general. We felt that there was no chance of a fair trial in the local courts. I believe the courtrooms were still segregated. Negroes did not use they had special rest room facilities and so on. We believe there hadn't been Negroes serving on the jury. This was our understanding anyway, and we were under the belief that Federal law permitted these registration workers, gave them the right to go and solicit, constitutional right and statutory right, to go and help black people register in Federal elections, and we felt that this right would be thwarted, if it had to be, if workers were to be tried in a court where it was felt they could not be assured of impartial

treatment.

Therefore, the attorneys instructed me to file removal papers, believing that it was a Federal matter, since these workers were operating under Federal law, there were Federal statutes regarding the right

to vote, and that perhaps they would get a fairer trial within the Federal court, the local Federal court.

Senator TYDINGS. Now go back to the Wechsler case. What happened in the Wechsler case in the local court when the removal papers were filed?

Mr. KNOPF. Did you say local Federal court?

Senator TYDINGS. In the State court.

Mr. KNOPF. In the State court? I was present when Mr. Rosenberger served the papers on the judge, and the defendants were already in the courtroom, and the trial was just about to start when Mr. Rosenberger gave the papers and explained to the judge who appeared to be unfamiliar with removal proceedings exactly what had occurred and that the State court no longer had jurisdiction to try the case.

The judge indicated, as Mr. Rosenberger said, that he was going ahead. He didn't know anything about removal. He wasn't going to pay any attention to it and told him to sit down and get away from these people because he asked Mr. Rosenberger whether he was ber of the Florida Bar, and when he said "No," the judge said, "Well, then, get away from these defendants. You cannot represent them.

mem

I believe sometime before Mr. Rosenberger was thrown out of the courtroom it was stated that there was no attorney present to represent these people, that they could not get an attorney and they would like a continuance at least to get an attorney to represent these persons, and at one point one of the-when the trial had started the judge had asked the workers some questions. One of the workers turned around to look at Mr. Rosenberger who was sitting in the back, for some kind of advice, and at that point the judge threw Mr. Rosenberger out of the courtroom. He ordered him out and when he was slow in going somebody came along and helped him out.

Senator HRUSKA. Would the Senator yield? That is a reference, when you say the courtroom, that is the city court.

Mr. KNOPF. This is the local Gadsden County.

Senator HRUSKA. The local court?

Mr. KNOPF. That is correct.

Senator HRUSKA. You wouldn't want the impression to be gotten that Judge Carswell suffered any lawyer to be kicked out of his courtroom at any time?

Mr. KNOPF. Oh, no, I am referring to the Gadsden County Court; yes, sir. It was then after that incident, and the trial was immediately held, these people were sentenced to 60 days in jail or a $50 fine, and they were immediately put into the local jailhouse. Then I was told to prepare habeas corpus papers to file in Federal court because the attorney told me that it was clear, and I had read the statute, this was my understanding, that it was clear that the State court had no jurisdiction to try these people, since the matter had been removed, and therefore it was mandatory that a habeas corpus writ be issued."

At this point, as I recall it, Mr. Rosenberger was about to leave, and we got a new attorney, Mr. Lowenthal to come down.

Senator TYDINGS. Now did you personally assist Mr. Lowenthal and did you appear with Mr. Lowenthal before Judge Carswell in the Wechsler case?

Mr. KNOPF. Yes. I was present with Mr. Lowenthal when he went before Judge Carswell to seek the habeas corpus relief.

Senator TYDINGS. Would you tell the committee what you observed, including Judge Carswell's attitude toward you and the students and nonstudents involved with the civil rights voting project whom you were seeking to defend?

Mr. KNOPF. Yes, sir. I would be less than honest if I said that I actually remembered verbatim some words that were said. I do not. I do have

Senator TYDINGS. Tell the committee to the best of you memory what you observed.

Mr. KNOPF. Yes.

Senator TYDINGS. And we are particularly interested in Judge Carswell's attitude.

Mr. KNOPF. It is relatively clear in my mind. I remember this. This was my first courtroom experience, really, out of law school, and I remember quite clearly Judge Carswell. He didn't talk to me directly. He addressed himself to the lawyer, of course, Mr. Lowenthal, who explained what the habeas corpus writ was about, and I can only sav that there was extreme hostility between the judge and Mr. Lowenthal. Judge Carswell made clear, when he found out that he was a northern volunteer and that there were some northern volunteers down, that he did not approve of any of this voter registration going on and he was especially critical of Mr. Lowenthal in fact he lectured him for a long time in a high voice that made me start thinking I was glad I filed a bond for protection in case I got thrown in jail. I really thought we were all going to be held in contempt of court. It was a very long strict lecture about northern lawyers coming down and not members of the Florida Bar and meddling down here and arousing the local people against-rather just arousing the local people, and he in effect didn't want any part of this, and he made it quite clear that he was going to deny all relief that we requested. At that point, Mr. Lowenthal argued that the judge had no choice but to grant habeas as the statute made it mandatory.

Senator TYDINGS. Did the State send a representative?

Mr. KNOPF. No, sir. I personally had called the county prosecutor to inform him of the hearing to tell him when it would be held so that he could show up, and I remember his response roughly, his attitude, because it was an attitude that I met of numerous other prosecutors while working down there. Their attitude was they were not going to chase all the way over to Federal court to defend this case, that everything would blow over after the summer anyway, and they had much more important things to do in terms of criminal matters or private practice back in their home seat, and they were not going to show up and they didn't want anything to do with it in effect. So there was no one there from the county. There were just the civil rights attorneys plus the judge. So no one had argued against the granting of habeas corpus relief.

But I remember Mr. Lowenthal going on and on with the judge that he had to grant relief because the statute spoke in terms of "shall grant habeas corpus," not "may," and Judge Carswell said that there were very few areas of the law, I am not quoting, I mean this is my impression, it was something along like this, that there were few areas of the law that there wasn't some discretion left to the judge, and he was going to exercise that discretion against us and he would keep these people in jail.

Mr. Lowenthal argued strenuously that we feared for the safety of these people in jail, and that it was quite clear that these persons were convicted in violation of Federal law. They didn't even have an attorney. They were working on voter registration projects and things like that.

Senator TYDINGS. Did Judge Carswell have all of the facts before him?

Did Mr. Lowenthal give him all of the facts as related here by Mr. Rosenberger to this committee this morning?

Mr. KNOPF. Yes, he did, and they were also, most of them, I wouldn't swear to all of them exactly, were in the petition, because I drew up the petition, these facts were set forth either in the removal petition or in the habeas corpus petition, generally setting forth all these facts. There then went on a lengthy discussion between Mr. Lowenthal and the judge exactly as to what the law was, and the judge required some books to be brought out, the statute to be put before him and so on, and he eventually concluded that we were right, I mean Mr. Lowenthal was right, in that he had no choice. He had to grant habeas corpus, because these state court was without jurisdiction. So he then very reluctantly granted it. He said all right, we win, something like that, you know, all right, here it is.

He then said, however, I don't know exactly in what order, but I remember that he then said but he did have discretion with regard to removal, and he would remand the removal petition back to the state court, and Mr. Lowenthal argued that there had been no request from the county prosecutor, no one had showed up to ask for this remanding, and the judge said that he had the power to do it himself, and that he would do it without a request. So on his own motion he remanded.

They then got into a discussion about serving the habeas corpus. At first I was under the impression, and it appeared, the Marshal was there, that the Marshal was taking the habeas papers to serve them, but Judge Carswell announced that the Marshal would not serve the papers, that Mr. Lowenthal would have to drive out to the county jail himself, and serve these papers.

The CHAIRMAN. The judge announced that the Marshal would not serve the papers, that he would have to serve them himself? Mr. KNOPF. That is correct.

The CHAIRMAN. Isn't that ordinary procedure?

Mr. KNOPF. No. We thought it was extraordinary, and Mr. Lowenthal said as much. He said, isn't it normal practice for the Marshal to serve the papers and in fact isn't it required even by law? Judge Carswell-all I remember is that the Marshal was not going to serve the papers.

Senator HRUSKA. That was Mr. Lowenthal's interpretation of the law, that it is normal process?

Mr. KNOPF. That is correct.

Senator HRUSKA. Did he cite any authority or did he get any? Mr. KNOPF. To be honest I don't really remember. I don't remember it, sir.

Senator HRUSKA. The fact is to the contrary but we will pass that over for the time being. He did say, however, that it is normal, process for the Marshal to serve the writ,