The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 37

FREED MAN TELLS HIS STORY nn0 xcssnstfo Lawmen i i i naKen.ov Keie Once of ondemned i er' i It mmmmmm ijm I Mtvw.jv JS. ONCE CONDEMNED, NOW HE'S FREE Dan Clifton Robinson, a confessed killer, waves farewell to County Jail on release the day after acquittal in third trial at which his confession wasn't admitted. Times photo by Joe Kennedy in BY ART BERMAN Tim Stiff Wrffir Ing the streets How do you feel, citizen?" Dist. Atty. Evelle J.

Younger said Robinson was freed because "the law was changed after the crime. This result is a byproduct of the Supreme Court's tendency to change the ground rules and apply the new rule retroactively." But Robinson's attorney, Al Mathews, said: "If there Is anybody to it's the officers. They coerced a confession out of Robinson by brutality. They didn't feed him, they stripped him naked and held him for hours and bribed him with cigarettes. They propped his feet on a chair and sat on his knees.

"If the officers had handled this properly in the first place I think Robinson would be in prison today." Mathews added, however, that he wasn't judging Robinson's guilt or innocence. "As you know, under the code of ethics of the American Bar I'm not supposed to be interested in the guilt or innocence of the defendant. I'm only supposed to present his side of the case." "Between you and me," Mathews added, "I don't think he pulled the trigger at all and I think they had the wrong gun in the case." Mathews' remarks brought an angry rebuttal from Sheriff Peter Pitchess, whose homicide detectives investigated the case. "But I kept my promise to Gov. Rolph to visit San Quentin.

"I even visited Death Row and I feel I gained a more human feeling toward those convicts than I. would have had if I had not made the visit." Judge Clarke says that he has "sincerely tried to temper justice with mercy" since then. "Every time I granted probation or extended leniency to a defendant appearing before me," he added, "I felt the facts of the case and the background of the defendant justified a further opportunity for the defendant to rehabilitate himself." Judge Clarke is proud of the fact that his appointment to the federal bench here in 1955 was the only one made by Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Far West throughout the general's eight years as President. It was during the 1961-64 term of Francis C.

Whelan as United States attorney here that Judge Clarke encountered the greatest criticism. (Whelan, incidentally, later was appointed a federal judge and is now under Judge Clarke's administrative direction.) Two Judges Feuded Whelan, a Democrat (appointed U.S.. attorney by the late President John F. Kennedy), a Catholic and president of the Holy Name Union of the Los Angeles Archdiocese, feuded openly with Judge Clarke, a Republican, an Episcopalian and a Mason. one occasion Judge Clarke suggested the U.S.

attorney's office was giving "special treatment" in a bond counterfeiting case to the defendant, Erwin B. Arvey, son of the Chicago Democratic leader, Jake Arvey. Exactly a month later, Whelan accused Judge Clarke of interfering with a special grand jury investigation of possible antitrust violations in the concrete and steel pipe industry. It was no secret that a log of Judge Clarke's allegedly objectionable conduct in his courtroom and his sentencing practices was being funneled to the Justice Department in Washington. The information was leaked to the press, and one Southern California suburban news- PART II EDITORIALS THURSDAY, JULY 14, 1964 BILL HENRY The Mighty Are Fallen Of course there'll be a recount in once sturdily conservative Virginia, but even if the early result should be upset and veteran Sen.

Willis Robertson and old time House member Howard Smith be re-elected, things just won't be quite the same. These were a couple of fixtures in the Congress, steady, dependable and conservative as the Rock of Gibraltar. For such as Robertson and Smith even to be challenged, much less de feated, will seem to some like heresy. Their fingernail thin defeat, Robertson by less than 800 votes out of 433,000 and Smith by about 350 out of 53,000, is more of a shock than a surprise to Wash ington. That these two hardy veterans were in for the fight of their lives has been common knowledge for a couple of months.

But it was hard to believe. In the past you simply didn't challenge such re-spected old-timers not in Virginia. Things Have Changed Robertson, in his late 70's but active as ever, has been a staunch conservative in the Senate but still, just one of 100 senators. Smith, however, has been a power in the House, one very much to be reckoned with. In his mid-80's Smith has wielded enormous authority by virtue of his position as chairman of the once all-powerful Rules Committee.

Even when, a few years back, the power of his committee to bury proposed legislation was somewhat clipped, he still commanded unusual authority. When Smith spoke, everybody listeneda rarity in the turbulent House. "Judge" Smith in the House has been pretty much the counterpart of Richard Brevard Russell in the Senate if they didn't approve a bit of legislation it took some mightly pulling and hauling to get it through. Both are masters of legislative know-how, thoroughly familiar with every twist and turn of the rules and both highly respected and very persuasive. Not even the Speaker carried more personal weight in the House than the Judge.

This time Smith, who has run unopposed during many of his years in the House, was dered out of some of the staunchest conservative areas formerly in his district and was handed, in return, some country areas with heavily Negro population. He was attacked for his age. He replied, "It's true I am 83 years old, but not willingly I've opposed this development for years!" The End of an Era The Smith defeat was the talk of the sweltering day on Capitol Hill yesterday. When Speaker McCor-mack held his regular presession news conference just before the House convened, of the reporters asked him what he thought of Smith's defeat. "I'm not going to get into that," hastily replied the Speaker, "that's Virginia I'm from Massachusetts." Gossip among the politicians dealt largely with the prospects of a recount.

There was a feeling that Robertson was more likely to demand one than Smith, his margin of defeat, percentagewise, being very much smaller. The general feeling among members of btith houses in discuss-in the Virginia outcome was that it was less a vote against conservatism than against age it was a victory for the "youth movement" and, in Smith's case, definitely the end of an era. CC 1i i 1 urmon career by becoming chief judge of the U.S. District Court here. Barring the unforeseen, he will retain the post six years.

There undoubtedly were shudders in certain quarters when word got around that through the accident of seniority Judge Clarke would replace 70-year-old Chief Judge William M. Byrne on July 1. Judge Clarke is not known exactly as a "hanging judge." He has, on the contrary, been referred to by some critics as a "Santa Claus." One of his recent predecessors former Chief Judge Peirson Hall bluntly termed his sentencing practices "ridiculous." Imperial County's old planked road, A confessed and once-condemned killer walked free Wednesday amid a flurry of controversy over the State Supreme Court decision that led to his acquittal. Dan Clifton Robinson, 23, was released from custody a day after hi3 acquittal in the 1962 Fox Hills Country Club robbery-slaying and more than four years after his arrest on a murder charge. It was apparently the first time that a confessed killer not only escaped the gas chamber but was completely cleared because of the Dorado decision.

Smiling and waving for photographers, Robinson walked from the County Jail at 1:15 p.m. and said: "It's a cruel thing to put a man on death row for a crime he never committed." Says He Was Beaten He said he confessed because he had been "beaten, starved and thrown naked into my cell." Robinson, who was met by nobody but newsmen, said he would return home to his wife and two daughters, ages 4 and 5, in south Los Angeles. Studious-looking in black-rimmed spectacles, Robinson said he expected to find a job quickly and eventually enter college to study art. "I just finished high school in the penitentiary," he said. Meanwhile, the prosecutor, Dep.

Dist. Atty. Billy D. Webb, issued a statement which said in part: "Due to the Supreme Court decision a self-confessed killer is walk- Former colleagues in the lower courts have said he has a "reputation for expediency and leniency" and that some of his actions are "shocking." Judge Clarke insists his practices are "fair," rather than lenient. He ascribes the criticism to "petty jealousy." He recalls that when he was appointed to the Municipal Court in 1932, Gov.

James Rolph requested that he take a tour through San Quentin Prison. "I knew that as a Municipal Court judge I would never be sending any defendants there," he pointed out. now twisted and torn, with time. Times photo by Joe Kennedy Clarke: Study "Mr. Mathews' statements are utterly false and are unethical," said Pitchess, "and I think something should be done about an attorney like this who makes such statements that he can't support" Pitchess said one of Robinson's co-defendants, Willie Ward Hickman, previously made brutality accusations against the Sheriffs Department and an investigation "found no misconduct on the part of our personnel." "If there is a basi3 for any such claim (on Robinson's behalf), why didn't (Mathews) report it to me as he has done in other cases, and there would have been an investigation?" asked Pitchess.

Brutality Not an Issue Mathews replied that brutality was not raised as an issue in Robinson's latest trial because the matter of the confession was excluded, but he added that Robinson contended at two earlier trials that he had been forced to confess. Brutality was not an issue -when the State Supreme Court reversed Robinson's conviction Jan. 26 on grounds that the defendant had not been advised of his right to counsel and his right to remain silent when he signed a 17-page confession. In the confession, Robinson admitted firing the shotgun which killed bartender Lewis J. Grego, 47, and critically wounded banquet Please Turn to Page 8, Col.

1 Judge Thurmond Clarke Times pint paper published a critical series of articles- Records show this sampling of cases: A reputed large wholesaler of narcotics with a long criminal record, convicted of evading $13,000 in taxes over a four-year period, was sentenced to pay a fine of $400. Probation, and suspended sentence was given a young man who pleaded guilty to taking $24,266 in robberies of eight banks and savings and loan companies. A disbarred accountant, burglar and gambling embezzler convicted of preparing false tax returns and forging checks was given a suspended sentence and fined $5,000. A $400 fine was imposed in a $101,500 tax evasion case and a fine in a $51,00 tax evasion case. Fines totaling $4,150 were given eight persons convicted on a 76-count mail fraud indictment for a knitting machine scheme in which Please Turn to Page 2, CoL 3 from a Staff Writer bygone days called it.

Every few hundred yards ther were turn-outs waiting spaces for cars from the opposite direction to pass. It was often shut down by shifting sands and closed to traffic at times for weeks and months. The state employed teams of mules and scrapers to carry away sand following each wind storm for it was a vital link between th southeasternmost corner of California and southwestern Arizona. Today, stretches of Old Shakey still snake across the dunes. Its timbers and steel bands are twisted and torn.

Weeds spiral through rotting ties. Unorthodoxy lslll7 BY GENE BLAKE Tinni StH Writer Thurmond Clarke is one of those rarities among judges who doesn't fit the mold. His courtroom conduct and particularly his sentencing practices are unorthodox, to say the least. He openly courts publicity, and is outspoken to an unjudicial degree. His critics are legion.

But after 34 years on the Thurmond Clarke is still going strong, his energy boundless as ever, his strident voice unwavering, his step quick and light for a large man. Now, at 64, Thurmond Clarke perhaps has reached the peak of his A foot traveler makes his way along til WEEDS WIN OVER OLD SHAKEY Planked Road Leaves Trail of Rust and Rot on Desert fill Tliigr 4M 1 1 1 ir-rmirnin I Ixcluilvi to Tin Time EL CENTRO Motorists making the 57-mile drive from here to Yuma, along Interstate Highway 8 pass one of the strangest stretches of road ever constructed in America. It was the planked highway the nation's original washboard road made up of ties strapped together with bands of steel. The road was used from 1915 to 1926 when it was replaced with pavement. It extended for 6.7 miles across Imperial County's rugged Sand Hills beginning 15 miles west of Yuma.

There was no attempt at uniform grade the planked highway simply followed the contour of the dunes. Old Shakey is what motorists of.