A Sergeant's Reward

Though all my law is fudge, Yet I'll never, never budge, But I'll live and die a judge! --Trial by Jury, Gilbert & Sullivan

His legal background is not exactly fudge, though it notably lacks the hard center of juridical experience to be expected of a federal judge. That deficiency has never budged Francis Xavier Morrissey from his deep-seated ambition to win a life appointment to the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts.

Last week, over strong, longstanding protests from the American Bar Association, the Massachusetts Bar Association, the Boston Bar Association and the chief judge of the court involved, Morrissey, 55, a Boston political wheelhorse and municipal court justice, took a big step toward achieving that goal. He was nominated for a Massachusetts federal judgeship by President Johnson.

"Like a Governess." Frank Morrissey got there by taking what in Boston was the surest route to the top of his chosen career. He made himself endlessly useful to the Kennedy clan. If he lacked the depth or background for knighthood in the Irish Mafia, Teetotaler Morrissey had the unquestioning loyalty, energy and discretion to become a prized sergeant at arms.

As a reward for Morrissey's services, President Kennedy first proposed elevating him to the federal bench in 1961, but backed down when the three bar associations balked; the Boston judgeship has been conspicuously vacant ever since. Three years later, when Bobby Kennedy was about to resign as U.S. Attorney General, he asked Lyndon Johnson to name Morrissey to the federal court. Morrissey's cause has been pressed since then by Teddy Kennedy, U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, who has had a particularly close relationship with the old family factotum. "Teddy's attitude toward Morrissey," says one Washingtonian who knows both men, "is something like that of a boy toward his old governess."

Helping Jack. One of twelve children of a Boston stevedore, Frank Morrissey was raised in Boston's Charlestown area --a section that even today is so poor that Negro mothers refuse to allow their children to be bussed to white schools there. After two years at Boston College, Frank quit to take a job with the state, enrolled for night courses at Suffolk University Law School in Boston.

After twice flunking the bar exam in Boston, he finally passed, won admission to the Massachusetts bar in 1944, but practiced only briefly as a lawyer. His diligent work for Catholic and community charities, a must for political advancement in Boston, brought him to the attention of Mayor (later Governor) Maurice J. Tobin, who made him deputy commissioner of Massachusetts' state department of corrections. It was then, in 1945, that Frank's great hero, Joseph Kennedy, entered his life.

Kennedy paterfamilias at that time was hopeful that Son John would enter politics on his return from the Navy. Morrissey volunteered to help -- and soon became known as Joe's eyes and ears in Boston's tough 11th District, the fief of Honey Fitz, Jack's maternal grandfather. An eloquent speaker himself, Frank coached Jack Kennedy in political oratory, gave him a cram course in ward politics, and later competently managed his home office when Jack went to Washington.

All through Jack Kennedy's first congressional campaign, recalls one of J.F.K.'s longtime aides, "I always had the feeling that there were two campaigns -- the one we were conducting on the hustings and the one Joe and Frank were running." Mother Rose Kennedy pronounced Frank "a genius."

Morrissey became a trustee of the Joseph P. Kennedy Memorial Hospital and later of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library. One of his most treasured possessions is a photograph with Joe, inscribed: "We never had a more loyal friend."

"At the Bottom." In 1958, at J.F.K.'s behest, the then-Governor, Foster Furcolo, realized Morrissey's cherished dream of a judgeship by appointing him to the municipal bench. Lawyers and fellow judges agree that he has served capably and conscientiously in that post.

However, jurists point out that some of the most complicated and important cases in U.S. law are tried in federal courts, and that Morrissey has not had sufficient experience for the job. He has never tried or heard a case before a jury, has handled only minor felonies in municipal court, and has heard no equity cases.

When rumors of his impending nomination circulated last summer, the Boston Bar Association reaffirmed its earlier objection that Morrissey was "entirely lacking in the qualifications of training and education." When the nomination became official last week, Albert E. Jenner Jr., chairman of the American Bar Association's Committee on the Federal Judiciary, announced that he would fly from Chicago to fight the appointment before the Senate Judiciary Committee. "I understand he's a nice fellow," said Jenner. "If they want nice fellows on the bench who are incompetent, this fellow is well-qualified.". Morrissey's only professional support came from the Massachusetts Trial Lawyers Association and the American Trial Lawyers Association; the Massachusetts house of representatives also urged his confirmation.

The most scathing opinion of the candidate came from Chief Judge Charles Wyzanski of the Boston District -- his putative boss -- who sent a 1,400-word protest to the committee declaring that "those who know Judge Morrissey as a judge, as well as in his earlier roles as a law student and a practicing lawyer, rate him at the bottom of each of these callings." Added Wyzanski, who was neither a politician nor a judge before going to the federal bench: "To confirm Judge Morrissey would be to corroborate the cynical view that judicial place goes not to those who will honor it, but to those who by service have bought it."

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