Page 374 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
• United States v. Mattison. On the other hand, working with George Gordon, who had been in charge of civil appeals in the Second Cir- cuit and had come to Rosenman in 1969 to carry on a real estate practice, was a pleasure. Mattison had been convicted of holding up a savings and loan. He had been arrested about fifteen minutes after the robbery, when the Buick that he was driving was stopped by an officer, based on a description of the getaway car that he had heard in a radioed all-points bulletin. I argued that the arrest could not be sustained purely on the basis of the fact of the radio bulletin, that while the arresting officer had obviously done the right thing in pur- suing the Buick, his testimony concerning his receipt of the APB was not sufficient to demonstrate probable cause. I took the position that the defendant was entitled to question those who had firsthand information of the crime, the information that presumably led to the radio call; if that were not the proper result, then it followed that any time that the police wished to effect an arrest, all that they would have to do was to put out a bulletin. It was a great argument but, unfortunately, not one that the judges could begin to understand when George argued the appeal. We lost in a summary decision. Six months later the United States Supreme Court, in a totally analo- gous case, ruled that the fact of a radio call is not sufficient to insulate an arrest. We had it right, but we lacked the right judges.
That is hardly the point. The point is that I had worked with a very smart, intellectually curious, and honest, decent, respectful, and pleasant person who was unfailingly good to his subordinates. This would be very important as I was gradually becoming a disaf- fected litigator.
• Michigan National Bank v. Hardman Aerospace. And my disaffec- tion would grow. This case—which we referred to as “Dayco,” for the name of our client, who was the real party in interest—was probably my reward for the work that I did for Hyman Lehrich. (The suit was brought by the bank to which Dayco Corporation had sold a promissory note that was partial payment for the shares of
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