Justice for Sale

Graft, Greed, and a Crooked Federal Judge in 1930s Gotham

Gary Stein

• Publisher: Lyons Press
• Year: 2023
• eBook ISBN: 9781493072576
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

Martin T. Manton was a corrupt federal appeals court judge in New York who was convicted in 1939 and sent to prison. At the time, this was a hugely important story: Manton was considered the highest-ranking judge in the United States after the nine Justices of the Supreme Court, and was nearly appointed to that august body in 1922. Yet his story has never been told in book-length form before, and never with the benefit of such exhaustive research. More than just a biography, Justice for Sale examines Manton's misconduct in the context of the culture of corruption and organized crime that permeated New York City in the first part of the twentieth century. Dozens of others—prominent business executives, leading Wall Street lawyers, accountants, bankers, fixers, con men, another federal judge—participated in Manton's crimes. The book profiles these unscrupulous and often colorful characters as well. It wasn't until Manhattan D.A. and future presidential candidate Thomas Dewey's successful pursuit of Manton, a federal grand jury investigation, and a sensational prosecution and trial in federal court that shocked the nation that Manton and his corrupt schemes were finally brought down.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Prologue
• Chapter One: “A Person Best Left Unremembered”: A Blot on the Federal Judiciary
• Part One: Manton’s Rise
• Chapter Two: “New Ways of Making Money”: Becoming a Lawyer
• Chapter Three: “Preying Manton”: A Young Lawyer’s Rapid Rise
• Chapter Four: “Source of Pride”: The Nation’s Youngest Federal Judge
• Chapter Five: “Within an Ace”: To the Second Circuit, and Almost Beyond
• Chapter Six: “Material Things”: Manton’s Roaring Twenties
• Part Two: A Carnival of Corruption
• Chapter Seven: “Surprising to the Point of Shock”: The Subway Fare Case
• Chapter Eight: “Venal and Corrupt”: The American Tobacco Litigation
• Chapter Nine: “Judicial Shenanigans”: Milking Bankruptcies for Patronage and Profit
• Chapter Ten: “Inequitable Conduct”: The Cigarette Lighter Case
• Chapter Eleven: “Judge Manton Has Requested That We Prepare a Draft Opinion”: The Car Parts Cases
• Chapter Twelve: “Judge Thomas Wants $10,000”: The Perversion of Criminal Justice
• Chapter Thirteen: “We Realized There Was Something Wrong with the Guy”: Manton and the Mob
• Chapter Fourteen: “He Is an Old Friend”: Manton, FDR, and Another Shot at the Supreme Court
• Chapter Fifteen: “The Judge Needs the Money”: The Chicken Egg Incubator Case
• Chapter Sixteen: “I Got the Man Who Can Reach Judge Manton”: The Electric Razor Case
• Chapter Seventeen: “Ugly Rumors”: Why Wasn’t Manton Stopped Sooner?
• Part Three: Manton’s Fall
• Chapter Eighteen: “All That Is Evil in Government”: The Press and the DA on Manton’s Tail
• Chapter Nineteen: “You Should Take That to Your Grave”: Manton Under Federal Investigation
• Chapter Twenty: “A Very Substantial Safe, We Did Have”: Manton on Trial
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgments
• Notes