The Judge Takes the Stand

Judge Irving Ben Cooper had heard himself called a temperamental tyrant who threw tantrums on the bench "like a baby in a high chair." One attorney testified that Cooper had berated her in court as "a crummy little lawyer from the crummy little Legal Aid Society." Another witness described his addressing a group of youthful defendants: "You are all punks." Confirmation of Cooper's appointment to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York was opposed by both the American Bar Association and the New York County Lawyers Association.

Last week Judge Cooper, 60, finally got his own big day in court.

As the questioning began, the dapper, silver-haired man rose and faced the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee. For the next 2 1/2 hours, although invited to be seated, Justice Cooper stood and defended his record as chief justice of New York City's court of special sessions from 1951 to 1960, when he resigned because of the mental strain of the job. Cooper described a judicial nightmare of overcrowded dockets, inadequate facilities and inept assistants that forced him to adopt a rigorous code of courtroom conduct.

"I found we were groping in the dark, and sentences were being meted out that were indiscriminate and without basis and just constantly horrifying to one who really cared deeply about what was going on," said Cooper. At another point he declared: "I tried to talk myself into the philosophy that I should content myself with the knowledge that I was doing everything that I could. I could not bring myself to that approach. Ever since I have been ten years of age I have been on my own, and every undertaking I have tried to do with everything that is in me. I find I cannot change." Although he either denied or could not recall most of the specific instances of temper tantrums, he did admit that he had sometimes been "incensed" by the frustrations of his job.

When Arkansas' Senator John McClellan asked Cooper if he felt qualified for his new post, the witness replied: "Senator, immodest though this sounds, my answer is yes." Seated by Cooper's side throughout his testimony was Brooklyn's Democratic Representative Emanuel Celler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and Cooper's sponsor. Invited to testify, Celler praised Cooper's record and declared: "Any man whose blood does not at times grow hot at the sight of evil or in the presence of utter incompetence isn't worth a pinch of snuff."

With that, the Senate subcommittee adjourned to ponder the qualifications and the liabilities of the most controversial of the 124 appointments to federal benches made to date by the Administration.

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