Equal Attachment

Charged with conspiracy to defraud the U.S. on a Defense Department contract, Pennsylvania's Democratic Representative William J. Green Jr. tried an odd delaying action. He asked that U.S. District Judge John W. Murphy disqualify himself from the case. Chief reason: both Defendant Green and Judge Murphy are Irish Catholics, old political and personal pals. Thus, claimed Green, Murphy might bend over so far backward to avoid favoritism as to be prejudiced against Green (TIME, March 24). Last week Judge Murphy replied to Green--but on a much loftier plane of the law. "As judges," wrote Murphy, "we are neither Jew nor Gentile, neither Catholic nor agnostic. We owe equal attachment to the Constitution and are equally bound by our judicial obligations, whether we derive our citizenship from the earliest or the latest immigrants to these shores." The mere making of a charge of judicial bias "quickens the conscience of the judge and makes him more careful in discharging his duties. The sunshine of awareness has an antiseptic effect on prejudice."

So saying, Judge John Murphy refused to disqualify himself.

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