No Special Privilege

At Milton, N. H., one night last week, an automobile careened down the street and smashed into a telephone pole. Police approached the darkened car, peered in at a bald man, pronounced him drunk, took him to the station house. When they got him under a light and saw who he was they immediately released him, preferred no charges. He was Judge Eri C. Oakes, 42, of the State Superior Court.

Ironically, one of the first cases on his docket the next morning was the trial of a drunken driver. A jury found the man guilty, Judge Oakes sentenced him to jail for 90 days, but did not impose fine or costs, suspended sentence until the man could harvest his crops. Three days later Judge Oakes sent his driver's license to the State Registrar of Motor Vehicles, his resignation from the bench to Governor John Gilbert Winant. The following day he presided at the trial of a hit-&-run driver. As the trial got under way, a court attendant tiptoed up. whispered to Judge Oakes that an assistant attorney-general of the State wanted to see him.

With a tragic, white face Judge Oakes returned from his conference. "I am obliged to call this a mistrial," he said. Court attendants flocked around him sympathetically, watched him walk slowly out of the courtroom. When he got home he sent his motherless 14-year-old daughter away, climbed into bed, telephoned his friend the county medical referee to come over to his house. Then Judge Oakes shot himself through the head with a revolver.

In the mail was a letter from Governor Winant accepting his resignation: "I want you to know I respect your desire to accord special privilege to no man."

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