Voluntary Defenders Offer Help To Indigent Accused of Felonies

Any criminal who is arrested and jailed in the Boston area and cannot afford a lawyer, now has a means to be defended by legal aid.

The Voluntary Defenders, a group of Law School students, renders "gratuitous legal aid and assistance to worthy and indigent persons accused of crime."

Working through the Voluntary Defenders Committee, Incorporated, in Boston, the Law students distribute cards to the Middlesex and Suffolk county jails, the signing of which indicates a criminal's wish to be represented by a member of the group. A man is sent to investigate the defendant's need, bear his story, and the case is taken over by the Committee until the court submits its final ruling.

The Defenders were founded in the Law School last fall. However, they had no official ties or recognition. They were considered as a group of students, doing it for practice. Judges wouldn't allow them to go into court, which meant that all they could do was the leg work of checking stories, seeing witnesses and rounding up evidence for use of the Boston Committee.

This year, however, the Law School recognized the need for the Defenders. It granted them a $500 budget to meet expenses in their work and gave them quarters in Gannett House.

"It's a welcome change from the bulletin board around which we used to meet," Conrad F. Reiman 3L, organization president said last night.

Ten third year Law students started the idea. At mid-year, they recruited ten second year men, to train them so that they could take over, and that's the way it's carried on now.

"We don't pick students with a view only to their scholastic ratings," commented Joseph DiCarlo 3L, one of the members who is working on the group's new constitution. "They must be interested in the work." There is a minimum standard required, however.

Full Operation

The Voluntary Defenders are now operating in full swing. They have permission to enter court, but actually do so in a small percentage of their cases. Lawyers from the Boston committee take them to such cases as will give experience to the students, where they can ask questions and learn procedure. Often they make the pleas in the District Court of Boston.

The Legal Aid Bureau, under whose constitution the group now falls, also helps those who cannot pay lawyers, but it handles only civil cases and will not defend contestants in criminal cases. The Volunteers will take nothing but criminal cases.

Two members make the rounds of the county jails every day and pick up the cards signed by accussed men willing to let them handle their cases. In this way the group gets 10 to 20 cases to take care of a week.

Wide Range

Included in the list of crimes committed by those who call on the Defenders are murder, rape, larceny, robbery, burglary, drunkenness, vagrancy, assault and battery, forgery, and arson. Thus the students get a wide range of training.

The central committee in Boston was founded by Wilbur G. Hollingsworth, who is chief counsellor. There are three professional lawyers on the committee, and often an attorney volunteers. Money for clerical fees and expenses comes from the Community Chest.

To Hollingsworth's knowledge, the Law School is the only one in the country that has such a group organized. Other Law students do footwork and may even try cases for the poor, but do so under sanction of a professional aid group or individual lawyer.

Among those too poor to pay for legal aid, the committee has found that the number of criminal cases far exceeds that of civil.

This, in part, led the Defenders to begin another service, that of lecturing before various civic groups. In these talks, they describe types of crimes and the factors which contributed toward their execution.

In addition, the group is conducting a study of the mental cases confined in the state colony at Bridgewater as a part of an examination of the mental laws of Massachusetts.