Race, Rape, and Injustice: Documenting and Challenging Death Penalty Cases in the Civil Rights Era

6. Maxwell Climbs the Appellate Ladder

Chapter 6 Maxwell Climbs the Appellate Ladder Anthony Amsterdam knew Wolfgang as a teaching colleague at the University of Pennsylvania. He was aware, of course, of Wolfgang’s fame as a criminologist with a global reputation, and he admired his intellect. So, soon after Amsterdam was approached by Fund lawyers to join them in launching the attack of the death penalty, he recommended that Wolfgang be part of the team.1 Establishing racial discrimination using statistics had never been done to the satisfaction of a court. It would take an expert witness of Wolfgang’s caliber and proof of sound methodology to convince even an enlightened judge of the Fund’s claims. Courts were inherently slow to accept any new concepts, especially those coming from disciplines outside the law. Amsterdam soon met with Wolfgang to secure his participation. Though Wolfgang may have been indispensable for his sociological expertise , Jack Greenberg believed that in the end Amsterdam’s superior legal mind would be able to assemble the arguments that would give them any hope of victory.2 The death penalty was an established institution in the United States, was mentioned in the Constitution, and was deeply embedded in the American psyche. Greenberg was well aware of the battles the Fund faced and needed the best general he could find. Amsterdam’s Acumen Anthony Amsterdam was first introduced to Greenberg at a meeting in New York to discuss the representation of Charles Clarence Hamilton, a black man from Alabama. Hamilton had been sentenced to death for 84 Maxwell Climbs the Appellate Ladder breaking and entering a residence “with intent to ravish.” No harm had befallen the victim. Greenberg was so impressed with Amsterdam that he asked him to speak at an upcoming conference at Dillard University in New Orleans.3 “Tony,” as Amsterdam was known to his friends and associates, was endowed with an amazingly keen memory. One oft-repeated story came from his days as an assistant U.S. attorney. Appearing before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., Amsterdam during argument cited a Supreme Court case by volume and page number. One of the judges called for the volume, and not finding the case at the page number Amsterdam had provided, he called the young attorney to task. Amsterdam replied politely that the citation was correct but that the judge’s book must have been mistakenly bound. Upon closer examination the judge found Amsterdam to be correct. The volume had been incorrectly engraved on the outside as volume 211, but the pages inside showed the volume number to be 210.4 The judges who witnessed this encounter were amazed; the story traveled through the courthouse like wildfire. Amsterdam grew up in West Philadelphia, the son of a business executivewho ,priortohisreturnfromWorldWarII,hadservedasamilitary lawyer in Luxembourg.5 In his youth, Amsterdam played pick-up basketball with Wilt Chamberlain.6 He graduated from Haverford College with extraordinary grades. While at the University of Pennsylvania Law School he was editor-in-chief of the law review and graduated first in his class. He was then selected by Justice Felix Frankfurter to work as his law clerk. In 1961 he became a government prosecutor. A year later he returned to Philadelphia to teach at Penn’s law school.7 Greenberg knew that with Amsterdam on the Fund’s side, a successful assault on the death penalty in the South needn’t necessarily remain a fantasy. Tony had the skill and tenacity to make it happen. But there was more to Amsterdam than just his brilliance. He was incredibly industrious, working late, often past midnight.8 For him, sleep was an incidental luxury lasting only four to five hours.9 Michael Meltsner, soon to be the Fund’s First Assistant Counsel, described his experiences with Amsterdam during the heyday of the southern civil rights movement in the early 1960s. He recounted how Tony would often be called to represent civil rights demonstrators who had been arrested for their acts of civil disobedience. He was continually traveling between southern cities, grabbing whatever grub he could along the way to fuel his tireless energies.10 Maxwell Climbs the Appellate Ladder 85 On one occasion he was called to Jackson, Mississippi, to help prepare some pleadings that sought to move to federal court a number of state cases filed against civil rights workers. When he arrived, he found virtually...