Word: benching
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Modest and unimposing in speech and stature out of court, the 5-ft. 6-in. jurist towered and glowered from his bench, openly indignant at what he considered evasions and deceptions in testimony before him. He simply did not believe that the seven lowly burglars who had wiretapped Democratic National Committee headquarters at Washington's Watergate complex in June 1972 were a self-starting team working alone. Injudicially, some have argued, but undeniably in the higher national interest, as others would insist, he applied pressure until he got a scandal-bursting response. Once James W. McCord Jr. began...
...every legal right to remain silent and that this particular use of provisional sentencing, while technically lawful, could infringe on their civil rights. Sirica, not much given to mulling over law theory, is unrepentant. To critics of his actions, including his persistent questioning of defendants from the bench, he has replied: "I'm glad I did it. If I had it to do over, I would do the same?and that's the end of that...
Many of Sirica's colleagues on benches around the country seem to agree with him (see box page 15). More broadly, his handling of the Watergate cases is widely seen as a vindication of the legal system at a time of great stress. Chief Judge David Bazelon, who heads the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which has sometimes reversed Sirica rulings, contends that "Sirica became enraged not because he believed he was being lied to personally, but because he thought the court was being lied to. He has humility, which is not a universal virtue...
...determined staff, the outcome of numerous individual trials, and what may still be learned?and done about?the President's actions in the many Watergate-related improprieties. Sirica will continue to play a role in that process since he intends to remain an active judge on the bench even after he retires as chief judge in March. Early this year he will issue his ruling on whether the tapes were tampered with. He may well assign himself one or more of the major impending Watergate trials...
...stood before the bench, fingering some notes that he had written on an envelope, still a tall, erect, impeccably tailored figure. But his face was gaunt, and the familiar baritone, once so sternly confident and self-righteous, was surprisingly soft. Last week Spiro Agnew appeared in a hushed and packed Annapolis, Md., courtroom to fight what one of his attorneys called "professional decapitation''-disbarment...