Louisville's Legendary Lawyer: Frank E. Haddad, Jr.

By Burton Milward Jr.

What type of man becomes a legend – one who laymen and professionals alike respect and want to emulate? When did the qualities that made him great become so ingrained in him that his honesty and integrity could never be questioned?

Frank E. Haddad, Jr. became a legend in Kentucky as the most famous criminal defense trial attorney. He defended the most celebrated crime cases during the 40 years he practiced law.
His childhood experiences, plus hundreds of lively anecdotes that shaped his uncompromising skill at seeking truth and helping others, are shared in this book of his life.

Just as Haddad created magic in the courtroom, this book creates magic in our hearts, building the desire to emulate him. Written in a style that gives one the feeling of personally knowing Haddad, this book helps us celebrate the fact that quality individuals do exist, that a quality life can be built on principles of honesty and helping others.

How Haddad tackled the challenges with clients and their problems makes for better reading than any fiction detective story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 17, 2008
• ISBN: 9781456725402

Burton Milward Jr.

What does a real-life lawyer do after he retires? Burton Milward, Jr. chose to share amazing experiences he was privy to while working with one of the most famous criminal defense trial attorneys in Kentucky history. Milward, with a skillful use of words and insights into human nature, brings to light the depth and breadth of Frank E. Haddad, Jr.'s compassion as a champion of the underdog. Unveiling hundreds of the actions and beliefs that made Haddad such an indomitable force both within the courtroom and in everyday life, Milward's writing talents hold the reader's attention throughout.

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Chapter One

Introduction

Frank Haddad, Kentucky’s most successful criminal defense trial lawyer ever, a legend, was born June 23, 1928, son of a 100% Italian mother (love) and a 100% Lebanese father (warrior).

He passed the bar examination in August 1952. He found an office. The carpet was in complete threads, and we did the best we could with it, and I came up on a Saturday and we tacked it all down, and then I got some green carpet paint and painted it green. He won his first three criminal cases in a row. Then he won a fourth. A directed verdict of acquittal, and this time almost a feature article. From that point on, things started snowballing. And that was the beginning.

Frank Haddad associated with W. Clarke Otte, a legendary prosecutor who had sent 43 people to the electric chair, then changed sides to the defense and won 17 death penalty cases in a row. Oh, he was great. In those days there might be 300 to 400 people in the criminal courtroom to hear Otte give a final argument. He was a powerful, passionate man, good at quoting the Bible. I remember one time he talked for 90 minutes and had the jury in the palm of his hand the whole time.

Like Otte, Frank Haddad kept on winning. He made believers in local courts, state courts; the federal judges learned to respect him. The press picked up on Frank Haddad. He’s a very friendly type, they wrote. He’s friendly with the judges, the prosecutors, the bailiffs, everybody. He’s a great story-teller and a great mimic, he should have been on stage. The press added, And he has something else not universal among criminal lawyers — a reputation for honesty. Haddad had a big courtroom voice. His voice is a lawyer’s weapon: hypnotic, soothing, perfectly modulated, an almost physical force that holds you in place.

A master story-teller, Frank Haddad entertained his friends and associates and calmed down nervous defendants with stories from the early days of his practice. In The Breathalyzer Needle, the witness exclaims, Judge, Mr. Haddad hypnotized me! I didn’t know what I was saying on the stand! In The Fainting Prosecutrix, the prosecutor moans, Now I’m going to have to dismiss this case because this woman cannot look at Mr. Haddad! In The Gypsy Curse, the defendants insist on Frank Haddad. Siallee net gonna go to court, Meester Hedded, unless you promise her you bee there. Shee likes Bobby, bet shee’s scared, unless you der. In Shipment of Clothes, the judge suppresses the evidence (a truckload of men’s clothing) and dismisses the case. Judge Brooks held that diaphram up to his throat and said in that metallic monotone, ‘Frank, I wear a forty-one long!’

Here are new details and background about seven of Frank Haddad’s biggest cases — the celebrated, high-profile cases: Henry Anderson accused of murder in Louisville; Jim Smith accused of bid-rigging in Paducah; Anita Madden and Jim Lambert accused of stealing federal property in Lexington; Tom Hall accused of conspiracy to kidnap his estranged wife in Bowling Green; Ben Rogers accused of bookmaking in Buffalo, New York; and the C.J. McNally case in which the United States Supreme Court invalidated an entire theory of mail fraud prosecution, exonerated McNally, and set free hundreds of high-profile, convicted politicians all across America, men like Mandel, Kerner, and Margiotta. The Harvard Law Review stated, "Although the full impact of McNally on prior convictions is not yet clear, prosecutors fear that many people previously convicted will be released. Rudolf Giuliani, United States Attorney in Manhattan, complained, A theory of prosecution is no longer available to us."

When a courageous federal judge directed a verdict of acquittal in Frank Haddad’s last jury trial, freeing defendants James David Smith and L. Rogers Wells, a reporter described the courtroom response. ‘Yes!’ shouted someone in the audience. Wells’ wife and three daughters and Smith’s wife and three sons burst into tears of joy. And the courtroom burst into applause as Heyburn descended from the bench to return to his chambers and the defendants and their attorneys embraced.

Frank Haddad made speeches all over the country, sharing his expertise with that of other criminal defense attorneys. Clarity is the name of the game, he preached. First of all, you learn how to prepare a criminal case. You don’t just prepare it. You learn how to do that, he admonished. Frank Haddad wrote many articles and books about the big issues facing lawyers and the legal profession — lawyer advertising, financing judicial elections, neglect of the client’s business as a basis for disciplinary action — always stating the issue, setting forth conflicting viewpoints, articulating his position on the issue, and encouraging specific action.

Frank Haddad answered the tough questions in interviews: Did you ever represent a defendant you knew was guilty? How do you handle the guilty client who wants to take the stand and testify? What is your position on the death penalty? Are criminal defense lawyers honest? Why are some lawyers unable to practice criminal defense? He gave straightforward answers.

Frank Haddad — master raconteur — told stories about the colorful characters who frequented Louisville courthouses from his earliest days of practice. In Not Out of Gas Yet! he introduces Johnny Jump. John was a bail bondsman when I started practicing in September of 1952. John had a very colorful background. At one time, he was a riverboat captain on the Ohio and the Mississippi Rivers. In Burgoo? What Are We Talking About? the League of Women Voters goes after Johnny Jump for vote fraud. Haddad describes Jump’s adventures in five more stories, including The Monkey and the Chimp. Johnny Jump had a little monkey. And he had a chimpanzee.

Then, in Keep Better Records! Haddad introduces police court lawyer Robert Hession. Bob had gotten up in years, and he was crippled. He had one leg shorter than the other. But he was nasty as hell! He walked through that hall with that gimp leg and hollered, ‘Get outa the way, you son-of-a-bitch.’ Haddad’s stories about Hession include Corpus Delicti, where Hesh follows Frank Haddad’s advice forcing an angry judge to call Haddad, I don’t appreciate your making a mockery of my court! Haddad chronicles old-time police court lawyers and others, in eighteen stories presented for the first time.

Frank Haddad spoke of some of his high-profile friends, including famed trial lawyers Racehorse Haynes and Melvin Belli. He gave a picture of America’s top criminal defense lawyers relaxing and having some fun. And he described how he and Governor Wendell Ford appointed Kentucky’s first public defender.

Frank Haddad’s best friend was Lawrence Detroy, a.k.a. Fox. They were both born on June 23, enjoyed each other’s company, told stories and laughed, helped others in need. A former employee at Stouffer’s remembers them as regulars at lunch. When they would come to the door, it was like everybody in the dining room focused on these two men. I mean, it would be waitresses, it’d be busboys, it would be bellmen, and I used to be amazed watching them. Lawrence’s wife Beverly recalls how both Lawrence and Frank grew up in the old Haymarket section of Louisville. Here were two men raised in the Haymarket, one Irish and one Lebanese. Lawrence came from a family with bootleggers and gamblers. His Uncle Jack was a very powerful man. … Then you had the Haddad family, which was Lebanese. Frank’s grandfather was of equal power and standing to Uncle Jack. The Haddads were in the meat business and the produce business, and Frank’s grandfather controlled the Lebanese community.

In The Greenville Trial, Beverly Detroy recalls the time Lawrence and Frank travelled to Greenville to represent a very unpopular case. Lawrence knew it would be dangerous for Frank to represent these people down there, so his sole purpose was to watch Frank’s back. In Lawrence and Frank, she characterizes the two men, The singular characteristic Lawrence Detroy and Frank Haddad shared is that they both did everything they wanted to do. In Lawrence and Beverly and Frank and JoAnn, she describes how they lived. In the relationship of the two couples, there was constant laughter. We laughed and needled and cajoled and teased each other." In Hey, Fox! she relates a time Lawrence and Frank fished out of inner tubes at a lake. Frank’s feet don’t reach as far. He starts floating. He has no way of controlling this little inner tube. In Here’s Your Cap, Fox! she describes the time Frank retrieved Lawrence’s cap that was floating on the water. Frank casts his line out and snares the cap with his artificial bait, and reels it in. He smoothly reels it in. He’s got this attitude of arrogance like, ‘Well, there was a problem, but I solved it.’ He was thinking, ‘It’s just so cool, the way I was able to do that.’ Finally, Beverly Detroy sums up the good-hearted side of Frank Haddad and his best friend in Frank and Lawrence’s Way. Frank and Lawrence both loved people. They loved a challenge. They loved an underdog. They weren’t impressed with people with power or money. They weren’t impressed with anything except genuine sincerity and loyalty.

Frank Haddad shared mutual respect with the people around him. Here are examples of his own statements of great respect for attorneys, judges, and others. And here are examples of statements by others of great respect for him.

Here is the transcript of a casual conversation among Frank Haddad and some of his close associates. These lawyers enjoyed working in their chosen profession. Their warm feelings for each other and their clients permeate their remarks. They talk about Marion County, Kentucky politics, colorful politician Hyleme George, the dismissal of the Hyleme George vote-fraud indictment, the prosecutor in the Madden-Lambert trial in Lexington, Kentucky, an F.B.I. agent in the Madden-Lambert trial, and how Anita Madden became an excellent witness in her own defense.

I describe my own part in Frank Haddad’s scheme of things: the first time I saw Frank Haddad, how I started working as legal researcher and writer for him, how we won virtually every case we worked together on, and how his quick-minded, thorough approach to life and law taught me a lot — about him, and about myself. I describe my duties as chief of Frank Haddad’s legal research section, and I set forth in detail the story of how I plunged my mind and heart into the arduous task of attacking the Joseph Hicks indictment — eleven counts of breaking a tag to sell Commodity Credit Corporation soybeans — until, finally, I located an angle of attack, supported by caselaw, to dismiss the indictment. When I passed along a draft memorandum to Mr. Haddad with a note, FEHJR — HERE IS YOUR TORPEDO. — lbmjr, he passed it back with a counternote: Burton — A real killer! — FEHJr. He took it from there.

Working together, Frank Haddad and I felt good about ourselves. I received a lot of compliments for my work, and I gave many compliments for Mr. Haddad over the years. I relate the story of our mutual satisfaction when, in 1989, we won a directed verdict of acquittal in the Tom Samuels federal trial in Louisville. I reveal two little known aspects of Frank Haddad’s approach to life, that directly expanded his successful career: first, he developed his own meditation technique that he used when necessary, and gives his own description of it here for the first time; and second, he prayed a prayer every morning of his life from youth forward, and that prayer is set forth here for the first time.

This biography and autobiography of legendary lawyer Frank E. Haddad, Jr., this history of law and lawyers in Louisville, Kentucky, and nationwide, during the second half of the twentieth century, this collection of Frank Haddad’s stories about his criminal defense exploits and the colorful people he knew and loved ends with his standard closing, It’s been a pleasure being here, and good luck to everybody!

Chapter Two

Birth and Childhood

Frank Elia Haddad, Jr. was born on June 23, 1928, in Louisville, Kentucky. The birth certificate states his father was Frank Haddad, meat cutter, age 23, and his mother was Clara Gallo Haddad, housewife, age 22, both of Louisville, and that he was born at 319 East Jefferson Street.

Frank Haddad’s mother, Clara Gallo Haddad, was born on April 16, 1907 and died on October 15, 1986. She is buried in Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville. Frank E. Haddad, Sr. was born in Hammana, Lebanon on January 31, 1907 and died on August 14, 1985. He is also buried in Cave Hill Cemetery.

Frank Haddad’s mother, Clara Gallo Haddad, was pure Italian with a heart full of love. Be considerate of other people’s feelings, she admonished her children. Never let anyone be hungry in your house, she said. She would invite a stranger dining alone to join her family’s table at a restaurant. Countless times she sent food to families in need. People felt like royalty and loved in her presence.

On Christmas morning, her children helped deliver food baskets to needy neighbors. Only after that could they open their own presents. She gave her own children’s clothes to help other families through bitterly cold winter days, explaining, His mom and dad are having a rough time. His father’s out of work, so we help them. They heard her say many times, He who gives, gathers.

Frank Haddad’s father, Frank Haddad, Sr., Big Frank, was pure Lebanese. He was larger than life, a man of power, a warrior. Big Frank’s own father had served as a sultan’s personal bodyguard in the old days. Big Frank came to America and Louisville as a young man. He set up a butcher shop to serve immigrants and native Louisvillians alike. He organized political campaigns within the Republican party, and came to be relied on. He delivered the votes.

In the butcher shop, the whole family worked. Father, mother, Frank, his brother Robert, and his sister Dolores, plus outside employees. The boys, Frank and Robert, started working at an early age. Customers received fair prices and quality meats. The business flourished. They all worked hard.

Kara K. Clements’ article entitled The Best Defense: A Final Interview with Frank Haddad in The Brandeis Brief (University of Louisville School of Law, Winter 1996) captured these days, quoting Frank Haddad:

Our father was not an attorney. He owned and operated a meat market from 1927 until about 1962 in Louisville’s Haymarket area, which is one of the most colorful areas in the whole world. It had the vendors on one block, and had several meat and grocery stores. In those days, the stores were separate — fish markets, fresh poultry, live chickens in a case on the sidewalk. You would pick it out of the case and they would go in, clean it, dress it, wrap it up, and you’d take it home. Traffic would go in between the fruit stands, the meat market and the other stores, and people would do all their shopping in one block.

I was born about three houses down from the meat store. And then, I guess, within a year we moved into an apartment above the meat store. We lived there and worked there. My first employment was selling shopping bags right there on the market. When I was about ten I started working in the meat market, scraping blocks and cleaning up; and when I was eleven or twelve I was cutting meat. (Id., pp. 10–11)

David McGinty’s cover article entitled The Law and Frank Haddad, Jr. in The Louisville Times Scene magazine (© The Louisville Times, Saturday, July 8, 1972), chronicled this same period:

The Jefferson Street area where he grew up, the Haymarket area, still survives as a series of small shops and retail markets, and the Haddads still have some business ties there. But when Haddad came into the world in living quarters upstairs over the family meat market, in 1928, it was a rough-hewn melting pot, where personal industry and toughness were highly vulnerable qualities.

Haddad paints a vivid and largely affectionate picture of it: You saw an awful lot down there that you wouldn’t see being raised in a subdivision. There were retail markets, retail groceries, retail fish markets, food stands out on the sidewalks with canopies over them, and it would be just like a fair or a carnival down there on Saturday. It would be so crowded.

The whites lived over the stores and in the rear was Congress Alley, and there were homes built on it. It was like a small street, and the black people lived back there. So we were living back door to each other.

And it was a really tough neighborhood. Right across the street from the end of the market area you had some of the most notorious saloons in town. You had Toby’s, at Floyd and Jeff, the Sweetheart Bar on Jeff between Floyd and Preston, you had the Jefferson Tavern in the same block. You had Cotton’s. There were any number of killings and shootings.

I never will forget, one evening I was coming back from going downtown to see a movie, and saw a fellah in front of the Sweetheart Bar, with his stomach cut open. He was sitting there holding his guts in a towel, just sitting there. He lived. He was a bouncer in the place, he had picked on some little fellah.

Haddad, too, was a little fellah in that environment. His father, a salty, colorful man who has had a long career including posts in the city and county governments, was a Republican boss in the Haymarket district, and a man of standing there, but still Frank Jr. was not shielded from having to stick up for himself and make his own way in the world.

He learned to handle himself in fights that cropped up on the way to and from school. He was out selling shopping bags at the age of six to make his allowance. (Id., pp. 4–5)

Bob Hill’s cover article entitled The Lawyer’s Lawyer in The Courier-Journal Scene magazine (© The Courier-Journal, Saturday, October 31, 1992), chronicled this same period:

He was born 64 years ago — June 23, 1928 — above the family meat market on Jefferson Street in Louisville’s old Haymarket district. He was the oldest of three children born to Frank Haddad Sr., a Lebanese immigrant who married Clara Gallo, a young Italian girl he had met in her family’s bakery.

Frank Sr. had quit high school after one year. He went on to become a self-educated man, a student of Greek mythology and the classics, but he never lost his edge.

My father was tough, said Frank Jr. Not abusive, but he wouldn’t take anything off anybody.

The Haymarket was a lively, exotic place, filled with sights, sounds and flavor of newcomers trying to make it in America — with some of Louisville’s toughest bars just down the street. It was a mix Haddad remembers fondly, a clientele he has never forgotten. (Id., p. 14)

Big Frank was tough. When Frank and Robert were boys, the butcher’s union, Local 227, decided to organize the independent meat markets. We’ll organize Frank Haddad’s place first, they said. He’s the strongest. Then all the others will fall in line! But most of Big Frank’s employees were family, and there was no way they were going to become union. Their outside employees were loyal to Big Frank, so they couldn’t be organized either.

The union made a big deal out of it. Two rough looking pickets marched back and forth outside the butcher’s shop, carrying signs. They walked around out front. They threatened and bumped into customers, including elderly customers. Big Frank, square-built and strong as a bear, wouldn’t stand for it. He rushed out to comfort a customer and helped her inside. He came back outside, confronted the bully and said, Watch what the hell you are doing! Then he punched one of the pickets and broke the man’s jaw. He chased another one down the street.

The union swore out a summons against Big Frank, but he went to court and prevailed. So, it was uphill for the union. Even so, the head of the union, a hatchet-faced fellow named Earl, pulled his car up in front of the butcher shop. He sauntered into the shop, and he declared an ultimatum. He said, Haddad, you’re a no-good son-of-a-bitch, but we’re giving you one more chance. Unionize! What’ll it be?

Earl, I told you before. We will never go union!

Either go union, or take the consequences! We will bomb your store! We will beat up your employees! We will catch your kids and kill them!

In an instant, Big Frank had Earl by the lapels of his jacket. He picked the union leader up onto tiptoes and said, You rotten, leechy so-and-so! He called the bully every name in the book. I’m not threatening you! I’m promising you! Big Frank’s grip tightened. His fists turned up into the man’s neck. Their eyes met, one pair fearless, the other fanatic. You harm my store, or you harm a hair on any of my people, I’ll kill you! Understand? You are a dead man!

Frank and Robert always considered it justice when Earl, the union leader, fell down dead from a heart attack three days after that confrontation. After that, all the other small meat markets around Louisville, twenty-seven of them, stood up to the union. Their battlecry was, We don’t do anything until Frank Haddad does! Nobody had any more trouble from the union.

In politics, Frank Haddad, Sr. delivered votes for the Republican party. At various times, he held the post of precinct captain, district man, and ward chairman. He was appointed by Mayor William O. Cowger to the post of Director of the Building and Housing Department of the City of Louisville in 1961. He held this same position under Mayor Kenneth Schmeid until November 21, 1969. Then he was appointed Director of the Building and Housing Department for Jefferson County in November 1969 and held this post until July 1972. In that position, he never forgot to be responsive to the needs of immigrants and have-nots.

For instance, a Lebanese-American physician told the story of his first months practicing medicine at University Hospital in downtown Louisville. He said, "The hospital put me in an office way in the back on the third floor. It was not a nice office. The wall was streaked where water leaked down from pipes in the floor above. The floor was discolored. I mentioned it to the hospital. They put off the repairs. They would not fix the leaks. I was ashamed for my patients to see it. Frank Haddad, Sr. came by my office to visit. I was ashamed for him to see the streaked walls and the floor.

"He noticed it right away. He stood up on a chair and took out some of the ceiling on the spot. We looked at the pipes. They leaked. He said, ‘You should get the hospital to fix this mess!’ I said, ‘I asked, but they don’t want to fix it.’ He got hot then, and he said real loud, ‘They’ll want to fix it now!’ And he went back to his office. That same day he called the hospital administrators, and he told them the Building Commission had found violations in their hospital, and severe sanctions were possible if they didn’t correct the violations, which was my office. He told them he had the authority to close the whole hospital!

So, they came into my office immediately. They looked at what needed to be done. They called in plumbers and a carpenter. The repair was made. They enlarged my office. We redecorated it like we wanted, and the hospital was happy to pay. Frank Haddad helped me a lot!

In an article entitled Old Friends Flock to Funeral Home to Swap Tales about Frank Haddad (© The Louisville Times, August 16, 1985), reporter Jim Renneisen characterized Frank Haddad, Sr. The burly, outspoken Haddad was the acknowledged leader of Louisville’s small but politically active Lebanese-American community for many years. … Many recalled how Haddad’s forceful personality and rough manners sometimes enlivened City Hall in the buttoned-down era of businessman-Mayor William O. Cowger. Whitworth Howard, former city economic development director, recalled being with Cowger when an agitated aide rushed in saying, ‘We’re in trouble, Mayor. Haddad has just thrown a fellow out of his office.’ Cowger, trying to calm the aide, said, ‘You know how Frank is. He’s always doing that.’ ‘No, no, Mayor. I mean he picked him up and physically threw him out the door,’ the aide replied.

An article entitled Frank E. Haddad Sr., GOP Leader, Dies at 78 (© The Courier-Journal, August 15, 1985) reported, Cowger named the colorful and outspoken Haddad to the city post [city director of building and housing] in 1961. After the 1969 elections, in which the Republicans lost control of both City Hall and the County Courthouse, he was named to the county post [Jefferson County building and housing director] before the Democratic administration of County Judge Todd Hollenbach took office. Hollenbach kept Haddad on the job for three years, and when he finally resigned, in 1972, it was his own decision. ‘There was no coercion,’ he said at the time. ‘They (the Democrats) treated me like a favorite son.’

When Frank Haddad was growing up in the Haymarket section of downtown Louisville, he had to face the challenge of being falsely accused, not once but twice, by his father, Frank Haddad, Sr. Frank Haddad, Jr. recorded the following story on April 19, 1989.

You want to hear the story again about being falsely accused. When I was a little boy, there was a popcorn stand in front of Eckerle’s Drug Store at Floyd and Market Streets, which was on the southeast corner. And I could walk around the block, but I would have to cross the street to get to the popcorn stand. And I was forbidden from crossing the street at my young age.

So, that popcorn machine would be popping in the summertime, and that odor would hit me, and I’d get hungry for popcorn. But I never would cross that street. On this one occasion, I asked a fellow that was standing there if he would go over there and buy me a bag of popcorn. And I gave him the nickel. And he went over and bought me the bag of popcorn and brought it back across the street to me.

So, I’m walking south on Floyd Street, and my grandmother sees me. And she immediately concludes that I had crossed the street! And she went and told my father. And when I came home, my father confronted me. And I told him that I had not crossed the street, that a man had gone across and bought the popcorn for me and brought it back. And my father did not believe that story. And he imposed a spanking on me.

The other time that I was falsely accused was this. My father used to go up to the packing house, Fischer’s, or Emmert’s, or Vismann’s, all located up in the East End there. And he would go up and select his meat. He had a rubber stamp that he would stamp the name Haddad on the sides of beef that he wanted them to deliver whenever he would call and ask them to deliver a side of beef. He did this right after they would slaughter beef and after they had been in the cooler box for a sufficient period of time to become solid.

And on his way back from the packing house, he was coming west on Main Street, and he looked over in the railroad yards, and he saw a dog and two boys on the railroad track. And he mistakenly thought that I was one of the two boys. And, of course, that was forbidden, to go across the street and play on the railroad tracks for obvious reasons — the danger and all of it.

Well, he came home. And unfortunately, I wasn’t home at the time. I was over at Edmond George’s house who lived down on the corner. When I did come home, my dad said, What were you doing over on the railroad tracks?

I said, I wasn’t on the railroad tracks.

He said, Don’t lie to me! I saw you on the railroad track!

I pleaded my case. It wasn’t me on the railroad tracks! So, I got a spanking again, for something I had been wrongfully accused of.

So, the moral of those two stories really boils down to this. Circumstantial evidence should never be sufficient to convict someone on. Secondly, identification evidence is always susceptible to great error and should never alone be sufficient to convict anyone on. And that is also why I have become so ready to defend persons who have been falsely accused. Some people would have let that become a very destructive experience in life, but I have made it a constructive one.

On April 26, 1990, Frank Haddad again commented on the significance of the two times he was wrongfully punished by his father. He said, That’s why I’m so sympathetic to a person who is accused on the basis of circumstantial evidence. On the way back to Louisville from federal court in Owensboro, on March 17, 1995, Frank Haddad, Jr. again related the false accusations stories, adding the detail that he did have a dog named Tarzan.

Frank Haddad was full of stories about the time when he was growing up in the Haymarket section of downtown Louisville. He related the following anecdote on March 17, 1995. When he was seven years old, he purchased a Gene Autry program at the Savoy Theater for fifty cents. The program wasn’t worth more than five cents. His father, Frank Haddad, Sr., turned it into a lesson in life. He said to his son, You cannot trust strangers. That’s the best fifty cents you’ll ever lose.

Frank Haddad, Jr. liked to tell stories from the Lebanese community in Louisville. He recorded the following story, in 1990, about a family that moved from Indiana to Louisville.

Kay Shahady and his brother Joe Shahady came here from Madison, Indiana. And when they drove down, they had all of their belongings, and Kay’s wife. And Joe was not married at the time. They had all of their belongings in the car. And they had a cat! And they put the cat on a little board on the back bumper. They put the cat back there. The cat rode down from Madison back there. And it was right on the top of the exhaust pipe!

And when they hit Jefferson Street, my grandpaw commented, Kay, what’s the matter with your cat? The cat couldn’t stand up. He kept falling down.

Kay said, Trip too much for the cat! It was that carbon monoxide that about had that poor old cat knocked out.

Frank Haddad, Jr. recorded the following story, on March 9, 1990, about some boys he grew up with.

When we were growing up in those days, one of the boys we knew, Raymond, lived in an apartment building at 319 East Jefferson Street. The building had a big wide door in front. When you got inside that door, then you could go on up to your apartment.

At night, when we would be coming back from the movie at the Savoy, at about 11:00 or 11:30 p.m., we would get about half a block away from Raymond’s building, and Raymond would take off running as fast as he could run. He headed for that big front door, and he hit that door running. He popped it open, and it slammed against the wall with a big boom that reverberated all through every apartment on every floor of that building, waking all the people up.

One night, we were all coming back from the movie, and we got about a block away from that building. Raymond took off running. He raced for the door, full speed ahead. This time the door was locked, and Raymond bounced off that door all the way back into the street! He crumpled down on that street and said with a somewhat shaken and mournful voice, It’s locked!

Ask Bobby about Raymond.

[Note: Robert Haddad listened to the recording of this story on March 12, 1990, and advised that the story was about Gene, that Raymond, also known as Termite, was another person.]

Frank Haddad, Jr. recorded the following story, in June 1988, about a customer at the meat market named Peewee Bob.

There was a fellow who used to come in the meat market by the name of Peewee Bob. Peewee Bob used to sing a song about a little yellow Ford and taking his girlfriend out in a little yellow Ford. And he was a little bit off. And he would tell these wild stories. I asked my dad one time, I said, What’s the matter with him?

My dad says, "Well, many years ago, he was working as a stage hand at the Savoy Theater. And this act came to town. And there was a beautiful woman in the act. And Peewee Bob took a liking to her, and she sort of shined up to him. And she was in a magician’s act. And the magician at the time didn’t like the fact that Peewee Bob was playing up to her. Part of the act on the stage was that they would call someone from the audience and hypnotize them and then show the various things that could be done under hypnotism. So one day, this fellow enticed Peewee Bob to let him hypnotize him. And he told Peewee Bob that he was riding a bicycle. Well, he never did wake Bob up! Bob rode that bicycle for two weeks until somebody finally realized what had happened and got him out of the state of hypnosis. And he never was right since that time. And that’s why he’d always go around singing the little yellow Ford song."

We had lots of colorful people around the Haymarket when I was growing up.

Chapter Three

Starting the Practice of Law

In August 1952, Frank E. Haddad, Jr. passed the bar examination and took the oath as a new lawyer licensed to practice in the state of Kentucky.¹ Haddad wasted no time getting started. He found office space. He formed two associations that shaped the integrity and competence of his entire career. He began a lifetime association with attorney Hector Rose whose probity was legendary. And he adopted as his mentor in criminal defense the unselfish, exemplary teacher Clarke Otte. Haddad always felt the deepest respect for both Rose and Otte. They were older men, good men, seasoned in the law. They helped shape Frank Haddad’s earliest days when he first began winning cases and earning the respect of attorneys and judges.

Frank E. Haddad, Jr. recorded on March 10, 1983, the following narrative about starting the practice of law associated with Hector Rose.

Well, it was back in August of 1952, Burton, that I got the results from the Bar Examination that I had passed, and we went up to the Court of Appeals and were sworn in, and I came back, and a lawyer named Charlie McConnell and myself started looking for law offices. We wanted to start out on our own.

So we looked at a place out on Fifth Street just north of Chestnut which was next door to the old Robert Hall clothing store and upstairs above a music store, and it could have been rented very cheaply. And we were going to look at it, and Charlie was looking at several other places. Finally, Charlie got located with a lawyer in a realty building named Fisher, and I continued to look on my own.

Harold Marquette who is now dead was a good friend of the family and an old Republican who used to buy up in the meat market, and my dad and I went up to see him. He had in his office at that time Gene Snyder. And Gene had an office, or rather he had a desk in the reception room, and they didn’t have any office space. But they had another little desk in the office in the reception room, and I decided that I didn’t feel like I wanted that.

So, my aunt, my dad’s sister Mabel, was working in the Commissioner’s Office at the Court House, and she told me about a little office for rent over in the Kentucky Home Life Building. I went up to 528 Kentucky Home Life Building and met for the first time Hector E. Rose.²

The doorway was 528, and it was just a narrow hall and then those two little offices which measure 7 feet by 11 feet, the one that Debbie has now and the one that Mary has now. Hector occupied the one that Debbie has and the other one was empty. Herman Freck had just moved out and had gotten a job in the Commissioner’s Office. There were just two chairs for people to sit down in the hallway and a little secretarial desk there. I rented that office from Hector, and my total expense for rent and telephone was thirty dollars and eighty-two cents a month.

Ed Mengel had an office that you could open one of the inner doors and join with it, and we would keep that door open after I got up there so that we could use Ed’s library. The only library that we had at that time was the Kentucky Digest, the Kentucky Statutes, and the Kentucky Decisions, and Hector did have American Jurisprudence. But that was the extent of our library, and the books were lined up in the hallway which now leads back to my office on that wall.

The carpet was in complete threads, and we did the best we could with it, and I came up on a Saturday and we tacked it all down, and then I got some green carpet paint and painted it green. I went over to O’Connor and Racque, and I had known them because we used to study above their office equipment store and offices of the C.S.T. Company, the Creditors Service Trust. Jerry Lloyd and I went through law school together, and Mr. Fred Vaughter, who was one of the partners in Creditors Service Trust, used to let us use that office up there to study in it at night. I went over and saw Maurice Racque and bought a desk, a desk chair, a wooden oak chair for the client to sit in, and a file cabinet with a lock on it. That was the extent of my office furniture.

That nearly wiped me out of my $500 savings that I had, but I went over and was introduced to the two criminal court judges. At that time, Judge L. R. Curtis was sitting in the second division, and Judge Ralph Logan was sitting by appointment to finish out the term of L. R. Mix who had died in the first division. Both of these judges sort of appointed me on indigent cases right away. Keep in mind that it wasn’t until September of 1952 that I opened the office with Hector. It was within a day or two that I went over and was appointed to several cases, one of which was a man named Dillis Early, who was charged with carnal knowledge of a female in any number of separate indictments.

On September 22, 1952, I tried my first case, Commonwealth vs. Dillis Early. On that particular day, Dwight Eisenhower was in the city of Louisville, and he was running for his first term as president and made a speech in front of the Court House on a platform that had been built there. This was also another memorable day because my Aunt Mabel had since the first of September gotten rather ill with her pregnancy, and I got news as the trial finished that she had died.

A prosecutor by the name of Joseph Hancock was prosecuting the Early case. He was a former federal judge in the Panama Canal Zone and a former Jefferson Circuit Court judge and was attempting to fill out some years to get his state pension and was an assistant Commonwealth Attorney. At the conclusion of the Commonwealth’s case, they failed to prove a material element of the offense which was the age of the prosecuting witness. I moved for and was granted a directed verdict of acquittal. There was an article in the paper about the Dillis Early case.

The next indictment on Dillis Early came up, and they took great care to be sure that they proved the prosecuting witness’ age, but at the conclusion of the proof on that case, they had neglected to prove another material element, the age of the defendant. I moved for and was granted another directed verdict of acquittal. The newspaper reporter for the Courier-Journal, who was also a playwright, and I’ll think of his name in a minute, wrote another rather large story on Dillis Early’s second trial.

The third indictment came to trial, and the Commonwealth began putting on their proof, and it became apparent to me right away that the indictment that the Commonwealth had elected to try was the indictment that had previously been dismissed in the first trial. At the conclusion of the government’s case, I moved the Court for a judgment of acquittal on the grounds of double jeopardy. I asked John Garnflow, who was the old court reporter, to go back to his earlier notes to determine the indictment number that the jury had been sworn in on the first case and compare it with the one that had been just sworn to be tried and, lo and behold, it was the same, and the third Dillis Early indictment was dismissed. This time even a larger story appeared in the paper.

And the next case that I tried was with a guy that was charged with armed robbery. He had been playing poker with a bunch of fellows, and he lost his entire paycheck of $120. He went home, got his shotgun, came back, held up the poker game, and took his $120 back. He was indicted for