Biography
The following interview on Saturday, August 10, 2005 is with Lum Hawthorn who graduated from the University of Texas Law School in 1966. The interviewer is Cynthia Devlin.Transcript
CD: This is Cynthia Devlin and we're in the federal courthouse in Beaumont Texas. I am with Lum Hawthorn and we're going to begin the interview, it is August 10th, 2005. Mr. Hawthorn if you would like to state your name, just give me some general background information, I would appreciate it.
LH: My name is Joseph C. Hawthorn, and everyone calls me 'Lum,' L-U-M, my middle name is Columbus, I was named after my grandfather who was a dentist, they called him Lum which comes out of the middle of Columbus, so they called me Lum. I was born and raised here in Beaumont, I was born in 1942, and I went to Lamar University, graduated from Beaumont High school went to Lamar Tech at that time it was, and then it's now Lamar University, graduated in 1963, went to the university of Texas law school, graduated in '66 after that I was an FBI agent in Philadelphia and Chicago for three years and after leaving Chicago, I resigned from the FBI in '69, my father had a severe stroke and at that time Jack Hoover was the director of the FBI and I asked to be transferred back somewhere that I could be within an hour's drive and that was denied, so I quit and I came back to Beaumont and got a job as a prosecutor at the Jefferson county district attorney's office I did that for two years, and then after that I got a job as an assistant united states attorney, prosecuting cases here, criminal cases here and I did that for two years, and after that I was in a partnership with a lawyer here by the name of Joe Goodwin and I was with him for about six years and since then I been in private practice I specialize in criminal defense work and I have been doing that since; well I got out of law school in '66, I was an FBI agent for 3 years, prosecutor for the state for two, federal for two, so four and three is seven, and since then I been a defense lawyer. At the time I started as I recall in the Beaumont division of the eastern district of Texas there was only one district judge and that was Joe Fisher, shortly after I began prosecuting, William Steger was sworn in as judge and he was here, back in those days there was only one or two probation officer. I think there was only one probation officer back then. The criminal practice was very, very small in federal court, essentially all we handled were mail fraud cases, some tax evasion cases and that was about it and then in 1984 congress passed the omnibus crime control act, and that in effect made many crimes that had been local in nature up until then federal crimes, and it expanded the prosecution greatly, and now there are almost, not nearly as many federal cases as there are state cases, but there's a hundred times many federal cases now as they were back when I was a prosecutor. I really enjoy practicing in the eastern district of Texas, I've enjoyed doing that especially in the Beaumont division in federal court because it's a small jurisdiction everyone knows everyone else, it's very conduit, everyone gets along, everyone trusts each other a lot of the things that in different jurisdiction's you have to do by confirming things, and writing them up you can confirm with a handshake.
CD: Does it still work that way?
LH: In my practice, yes it does, I understand it's not that way at all in the civil practice
CD: The fact that it would have to be in writing…
LH: Yes, I think that occurred when the civil cases got large as far as monetary value of damages is concerned
CD: so that money kind of changes things…
LH: yeah you have so much money involve that the issues are joined and the fights are very ferocious because of the amount of money, you have the asbestos cases that started up, actually I think you've probably heard this, I think the first asbestos case in the country started here in the eastern district of Texas before judge Fisher, the case was I think called 'fiber-board,' and there were a couple of lawyers from Orange who prosecuted it, a guy named Marlon Thompson and I can't remember the other guy's name, but they brought the first one and there was guy named George W-h-e-e-l-e-r or W-h-e-l-e-r who was a defense lawyer here who defended the case and Judge Fisher was the one who made the ruling about the necessity for warnings on these products and it was appealed all the way up and sustained and that was the beginning of the asbestos litigations. And also here in the eastern district in the Beaumont division the consolidation of all those asbestos cases into class action cases started, as I understand it, I'm not in that business, but that's what I understand. Walter Humphrey, and then later Wayne Rio got the idea of making class action cases out of all of those asbestos cases, and I think judge Robert Parker was one of the one's who was instrumental in making sure that was done. So the eastern district of Texas has been very influential in the civil field I know, in those asbestos cases I don't know about tobacco cases I know that Wayne Rio and Walter Humphrey were tobacco people…
CD: I think we have some information on the tobacco cases, and I think all the asbestos cases I think we got some of that from Judge Cobb, but I'm not positive…
LH: He would be an excellent one; he would know that, I don't know it because I don't handle those kinds of cases
CD: As a criminal attorney, how did you make the decision to become a criminal attorney, I mean it's kind of an anomaly?
LH: I just kind of drifted into it more than anything; when I got out of law school I was an FBI agent, I probably would have stayed an FBI agent had I been transferred some place where I could have gotten help within an hour, I enjoyed the work, I enjoyed the people, the pay was sufficient, so I would probably have stayed but the circumstances didn't work out that way so whenever I resigned I was looking for a job and naturally the background that I had was in criminal law because of my job with the FBI
CD: But is kind of on the other side…
LH: I was a state prosecutor for two years, and then I was a state prosecutor for two years. The I was approach by Joe Goodwin, and Joe Goodwin had almost a national stature in criminal law, he was somebody that was one of the best in the state, and I think he had a national reputation and he offered me a partnership and I was flattered by it, Joe was a good guy had a lot of respect for him and decided I would do that there was more money in it than in the prosecution side, so that's how I got into it, and I just kind of drifted into it, I had no designs on becoming a criminal defense lawyer when I got out of law school , I really didn't know what I wanted to do but I wanted to do something different and that why I went into the FBI and then things just happened and I've enjoyed it, I've really enjoyed the independence that you have as a criminal defense lawyer, you don't advertise, I guess some criminal defense lawyers do, the way you attract business in the civil field is that you either advertise or you go to the union halls, like Walter Humphrey and Wayne Rio got it that way, you get the union people to solicit cases for you and on the defense side you have to wine and dine the insurance adjusters in order to get the insurance business and you got to play the game, you don't do that as a criminal defense lawyer, at least I haven't, I just hang up my shingle, they come if your reputation is such then they come but you don't have to wine and dine anybody you're your own person and criminal defense firms are traditionally small you don't have a lot of people working for you as associates and the reason for that is if somebody gets in trouble and needs a lawyer he doesn't want Lum Hawthorn's associate to handle the case, he wants Lum Hawthorn so you cannot really delegate your responsibilities like you can in one of these large civil firms. A lot of civil firms they have a lot of discovery type stuff that associates can build depositions, and do interrogatories, and requests for admissions and all that stuff it's pretty cut and dry, but in criminal cases the client wants you they don't want your associate and the reason that they do is because what's involved, their life…
CD: It could be their life…
LH: Yeah, I enjoy that you don't have a lot of administrative work…
CD: But it's a great responsibility
LH: It is but it's something that you grow up expecting, and it's never really bothered me that much and I think the reason I've always known it that's the way it's always been now I understand from some of my associates who are in the civil field that they just could not do it because of the responsibility and they weight on your shoulders of somebody's life or future, but if that's what you've always done, you know it's fine, I mean I don't have a problem accepting that. So you know it's worked out well you don't the administrative headaches, you don't have a large staff working for you, you don't have to worry about administering a business and a lot of these lawyers get into the business of law and that's really what they're in rather than practicing law and being one and one with a client trying to help that client out. They're representing a corporation or a class of a thousand people who have asbestos they never see one of them their secretaries or their paralegals or associates handle…
CD: They don't see as Mr. Jermel said the 'client pride'
LH: No, they don't see that but on one-on one you do, and you're really practicing law as I think it ought to be that's what I enjoyed rather than being in the business of the practice of law.
CD: Is it better, maybe I shouldn't say better, but from that 1984 law where so many things became federal offenses, how did that change your practice…
LH: Business got better, because they were more crimes, the more crimes that there are the more people get in trouble, and the more people get in trouble they need lawyers, so business increased.
CD: And practicing here you've said you've enjoyed it; the eastern district does it to you reflect the values of this community?
LH: Yes, I think so
CD: In a more conservative nature or…
LH: I get a fair hearing before a jury in my criminal cases; I don't find them to be more conservative or more liberal when it comes to administering the criminal law. I think the juries are very objective about it, they will listen to the evidence they will attempt to follow the law as instructed to them by the judge, I don't mind trying criminal cases in the eastern district of Texas, civil I really can't say cause I'm not in that, but I know that there's a lot of large verdicts and I know that there's a lot of publicity about this being a hotbed for plaintiff's law and other than I don't have any firsthand knowledge.
CD: When you say you handle criminal it's everything from murder to mail fraud…
LH: yeah, most cases in federal court are white collar kinds of cases, although there are a lot of drug cases as well, not as many crimes of violence you don't have murderers, you do have federal murders but they're rare if somebody's killed at one of the prisons for instance well that's a murder case and its prosecuted in federal court because it occurred on federal property but I've never handled one of those almost all of them are federal court appointed cases, they've been several federal court appointed death penalty cases, but I've never been involved in any of those. I think Pat Black has, he is the public defender for the eastern district of Texas, a guy by the name of Doug Barlow who works in my office he's not associated with me but he rents an office in my building, he's handling one right one, and he's handled another one, he and Pat Black both handled it successfully.
CD: so when you say white collar crime in this area, give me some examples
LH: Mail fraud…
CD: doing what, what do they do?
LH: Mail fraud is essentially some kind of a scheme that somebody dreams up
CD: Like a business scheme?
LH: yeah to defraud somebody, it could be with credit cards, it could be false billings, fraudulent billings, and an invoice is sent through the mails to further that scheme that makes a mail fraud
CD: So you have a lot of those
LH: yeah there are a lot of those because what they find is that they'll take major fraud and convert them to mail fraud rather than the state handling them the federal will handle them. At one time was a trend to federalize the prosecution of a lot of local violent crimes such as robberies, robberies of convenience stores, well what's federal about that, well under the commerce clause if, there's an act called the Hobbs's act and it says any crime that affect interstate commerce has a federal jurisdiction and so what prosecutors were doing was prosecuting a convenience store robbery saying that if affected interstate commerce because some of the merchandise came interstate, yes it was stretching it, and I think they saw that the courts was going to strike that down because it was being misused the fifth circuit came really close to doing that they had to have one vote go the other way they would have, I think the feds saw the handwriting on the wall and the united states attorney's office have decided lets don't misuse the Hobbs act like we've been doing to prosecute convenience store robberies lets save it for crimes that really do have an effect on interstate commerce because if we misuse these things then the court's are going to knock out the Hobbs act all together and we don't want that to happen, and so you don't see those convenience store robberies prosecuted any longer and that occurred probably five years ago.
CD: so now they're back in the state court
LH: Yeah, rarely do you see them
CD: is your business, what's your proportion of cases 50/50?
LH: Yeah 50/50 federal and state
CD: When you come to the federal court is it more formal?
LH: Its more formal, there's less volume and so more time can be spent by the courts and the prosecutors on the case than can be spent in state court, in state court you've got thousand street crimes from possession of marijuana on the street and crack cocaine, and robberies and burglaries, there's just so many that you got to turn the things and go through them. I took care of a plea of guilty in a case that I had in court this morning, in state court and it took, I bet you we were before the judge a minute maybe two minutes and then he goes down through the admonitions that you must give and he goes very quickly cause he's got another fifty behind, that case would have 30 or 45 minutes to have the same procedure in federal court, but they've got the time to do it, they all have, they take the time to go through it, if they had the volume that the state had you couldn't spent that much time doing it. The pre-sentence reports which are the reports that the probation department prepare concerning the person's background and the nature of the offense so the judge will know something about it they might be thirty pages long in federal court and they're three pages long in state court and they've got a thousand of them to do and the feds have twenty-five of them to do or thirty to do, so they can spend more time. They give better training to the probation officers in federal than they in state, and they do a much better job I'm sure the state if they had the resources and the time will do just as good a job, but they just don't
CD: It's not they don't want to but it's just that…
LH: They don't have the time,
CD: so you're the first criminal attorney, I guess I don't recall ever speaking to one, it's very, very interesting so I mean do you get calls in the middle of the night like on TV [Chuckles]?
LH: yeah I used to get a lot of them when I first started out people would call you in the middle of the night and the reason that was the case is because the bail bond system was different then than it is now and most people would get lawyers to bail them out of jail, well it evolved into the lawyer not doing as much of it as the bail bond companies now.
LH: yeah, they call bail bonds companies to do it now rather than the individual lawyers. So I don't get calls in the middle of the night anymore.
CD: aren't you glad about that [Laughs]
LH: yeah very glad about that…
CD: Everyone has said that judge Heart field coming from the area, coming from Port Arthur is very sensitive to the people in the area and very much part of the community. Do you feel like that's true?
LH: Yeah I've known him forever, he and I are about the same age and when I came back here and was looking for a job as a matter of fact I went by and talk to him I think he was the city attorney at the time or the assistant city attorney
CD: was he at Beaumont at the time or Port Arthur
LH: No Beaumont, he was in Beaumont
CD: because he was born in Port Arthur
LH: I think he was in the district attorney's office for a little while and then he went over to be city attorney and he was assistant city attorney and then city attorney. I went over I think I talked to him that was one of the people I talked too, but I had also talked to the district attorney's office here, and a friend of mine an older guy named Quinton Keith, he's dead now but he was a lawyer around here, my next door neighbor had talked to the district attorney about me and I kind of got an introduction that way, and ended up with that job
CD: Did you practice any cases in front of Judge Fisher?
LH: Oh yeah, I did a lot of work before Judge Fisher, in fact he was the judge, he was the only one so if you had a federal cases you did it before judge Fisher
CD: Everybody says that he was like bigger than life, that this was his courthouse.
LH: Yeah he was, he handled cases not so much by the written law but by his feeling of what was right and wrong, and he used the law to…
CD: So was that a social reflection of the area?
LH: I don't know why he did that, but that's just the way he was, I know if judge before him did it that way or not, I don't know that was something that was just peculiar to him or if other federal judges did it,
CD: He was here a long time…
LH: yeah he was appointed by Eisenhower. I don't know if he was taking his ideas from judges who had gone before him, or if that was just the way he did things on his own
CD: Now Heartfield, is he more within the law parameters?
LH: I think they all are here, especially the new ones Judge Crone, and Judge Clark, they are republican appointees as opposed to democrat, well Heartfield is a democrat but he was appointed by a republican, but Jack Brooks and him was good friend, Jack Brooks is the one I think who marshaled his appointment right before Jack Brooks left, and that's how I understand that Heartfield got it. But even though Judge Crone and Judge Clark are republican law and order kind of judges I have been surprised at how objective they are when it comes to ruling on the law of a case regardless of…
CD: They try to take the politics out of it
LH: They do, and the try to take the facts, if it is a case that has some bad facts in it, as for instance I had a case that involved child pornography and you know that a hotbed topic, real bad, well it was before Judge Crone and even though she just hated to do it, there was a ruling that she made, that was a correct ruling and it happened to helped the defendant and I know that she didn't want to make that ruling and a lot of judges would probably have bend over backwards to rule the other way, being result oriented, she wasn't at all she ruled according to the law and the facts and I appreciate that, and I think as a defense lawyer you going to get a fair shake when you go before judge Crone and judge Clark regardless of the fact they're republican appointees, because both of them are so law oriented and their integrity is so high I think on making sure that they follow the letter and spirit of the law regardless of the consequences
CD: Well this area, the Beaumont triangle, being a large democratic area, was there resentment of any outsiders coming in?
LH: I think there was resentment of outsiders coming in not so much that they were republican, because everyone expects with a republican administration you would get a republican judge, however I think everybody felt like there were plenty of lawyers who were republicans in the eastern district of Texas who were qualified to be judges, and that they didn't have to go outside the eastern district of Texas to find a judge and I think there was resentment about that, not real bad, but it's kind of uncomfortable, why are they going to Houston, why are they going to Dallas or wherever it is, there's plenty of fine republican lawyers around here
CD: But nevertheless, at least they have ended up being extremely fair
LH: I been happy, I was really concerned, but they've been fair, when it comes to sentencing if you lose, and where their discretion is involved, well hold on because they'll use their discretion to give a harsher sentence than you might get from somebody else but that's their prerogative. I can't argue with that I might have a difference in my opinion about what the sentence should be but as long as they're using their discretion, as long as their ruling is within the bounds of their discretion, I can't really argue with it, sure it shouldn't have been five years it should have been two and a half years, but that's why they're the judge they have the authority to give five years instead of two and a half years but as long as I get a, if the law say it shouldn't be more than five years and they get seven years, well I don't agree with that, but they don't do that, if they say the most they can give is five years that's what they'll do and they won't try to backdoor it some kind of way or rule…
CD: Unless, less make sure we've covered all the issues, have you ever practiced in other eastern district and was that experience different than here?
LH: basically it's the same, I did not live in those place but I've handled cases as far away as Fresno, California but I was treated the same in court there as I would be treated here, and I don't know, I didn't live there, the cases that I handled there lasted six weeks, so I was there six weeks and then I left, so I don't know anything about Fresno or the judges, I know one judge and that's the judge I practiced before on that particular case
CD: And you were treated nicely and fairly
LH: Yes I was. I have been in all federal jurisdictions; Houston, Louisiana
CD: to New Orleans
LH: and I've been treated very fairly
CD: well am going to be sending you a little follow up letter I'll have my email, if you think there is anything else you'll like to tell us just feel free to email me. Well thank you so much for your time
LH: Your, welcome, nice meeting you
CD: Nice meeting you to sir, bye, bye.
END OF INTERVIEW