Michael Musmanno
Encyclopedia
Michael Angelo Musmanno was an American
jurist, politician, and naval officer of Italian heritage.
Musmanno was born in Stowe Township, in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, an industrial neighborhood a few miles west of Pittsburgh
.
Musmanno rose to the rank of Rear Admiral
in the United States Navy
. He served as a regional military governor of the Sorrentine Peninsula
in Italy
during the Allied occupation. Later, he was presiding judge at the Einsatzgruppen Trial
of the United States Nuremberg Military Tribunal (and a member of the court during the Milch Trial
and the Pohl Trial
) during the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials
. He was appointed head of the three-person Board of Soviet Repatriation of Displaced Persons in 1946 in Austria
, where he fought the forcible repatriation of people into the Soviet Union
, many of whom did not want to be "repatriated" and faced terrible persecution on their arrival in Soviet territory. He later was a witness in Jerusalem against Adolf Eichmann
.
Musmanno had a lengthy career in civilian law. He served as a Pennsylvania state legislator; as an appellate attorney for Sacco and Vanzetti
; as a judge in the common pleas court
of Allegheny County (1934–1951), Pennsylvania; as a judge in the county court in the same (1932–1934); and ultimately, as a justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
from 1952 to 1968. There, he was conspicuous in his minority opinion in the obscenity
case against Henry Miller
's "Tropic of Cancer
" which in Musmanno's view was "Not a book, but a cesspool, an open sewer, a pit of putrefaction, a slimy gathering of all that is rotten in the debris of human depravity."
Musmanno spent much of his life interested in the plight of the working man, and in his Italian heritage. Beginning in 1929, the then-state legislator fought to banish the Coal and Iron Police
, a private police force that beat worker John Barkoski
to death. The police force was banished in 1935 after Musmanno wrote a play, "Black Fury"
, that became a movie. After the successful effort, Musmanno wrote a book of the same name
.
Musmanno is also remembered for his involvement in the anti-Communist sedition
case of 1950 against Steve Nelson
, who was leading a regional branch of the American Communist Party. The Communists sold tracts for $5.75 to Musmanno, who declared the store "the equivalent of an advance post of the Red Army." Musmanno used the resulting publicity to secure his election to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
. Nelson initially received a 20-year prison sentence, $10,000 in fines and $13,000 in prosecution costs. The Supreme Court of the United States
ultimately threw out the case, saying federal law superseded the state law under which Nelson was prosecuted.
Musmanno described the incident in a book, "Across the Street from the Courthouse," one of 16 he wrote. He also gave an account of his 1932 debate with Clarence Darrow
, "The Story of Italians in America," and "Glory & The Dream: Abraham Lincoln, before and after Gettysburg."
Musmanno was very proud of his Italian heritage, and among his numerous books was one arguing that Christopher Columbus
was the first European to discover the new world. Musmanno attended the Mount St. Peter Church
in New Kensington, and on 11 November 1951, he was the first lay orator to stand in the Pulpit of the newly dedicated building.
Musmanno was also intensely religious, and the last of his many dissenting opinions was against overturning an assault/attempted rape conviction where the trial judge instructed the jury to seek God's guidance in reaching their decision. Justice Musmanno concluded:
Justice Musmanno died the following day, October 12, 1968, on Columbus day
.
One of Musmanno's fellow justices on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court—Chief Justice Horace Stern
—when asked if he read Musmanno's dissenting opinions, said he was not "interested in current fiction."
Not long afterward, however, the court issued a ruling in which this Justice participated, and the wording was unquestionably similar to that in one of Musmanno's dissenting opinions.
This was no surprise, being that Musmanno participated in both decisions: in Perpetua v. Philadelphia Transportation Company, Musmanno wrote the dissenting opinion, while in Koehler v. Schwartz, he wrote the prevailing opinion, with Stern voting the same as Musmanno. Belli added that Chief Justice Stern "lived to regret" his insulting remark.
Musmanno is buried in Arlington National Cemetery
. His former home in Stowe Township is now a historic landmark.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
jurist, politician, and naval officer of Italian heritage.
Musmanno was born in Stowe Township, in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, an industrial neighborhood a few miles west of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
.
Musmanno rose to the rank of Rear Admiral
Rear Admiral
Rear admiral is a naval commissioned officer rank above that of a commodore and captain, and below that of a vice admiral. It is generally regarded as the lowest of the "admiral" ranks, which are also sometimes referred to as "flag officers" or "flag ranks"...
in the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
. He served as a regional military governor of the Sorrentine Peninsula
Sorrentine Peninsula
The Sorrentine Peninsula or Sorrento Peninsula is a peninsula located in southern Italy that separates the Gulf of Naples to the north from the Gulf of Salerno to the south.-Overview:...
in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
during the Allied occupation. Later, he was presiding judge at the Einsatzgruppen Trial
Einsatzgruppen Trial
The Einsatzgruppen Trial was the ninth of the twelve trials for war crimes the U.S. authorities held in their occupation zone in Germany in Nuremberg after the end of World War II. These twelve trials were all held before U.S...
of the United States Nuremberg Military Tribunal (and a member of the court during the Milch Trial
Milch Trial
The Milch Trial was the second of the twelve trials for war crimes the U.S. authorities held in their occupation zone in Germany in Nuremberg after the end of World War II. These twelve trials were all held before U.S...
and the Pohl Trial
Pohl Trial
The Pohl Trial was the fourth of the twelve trials for war crimes that the United States authorities held in their occupation zone in Germany in Nuremberg after the end of World War II. These twelve trials were all held before U.S...
) during the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials
Subsequent Nuremberg Trials
The Subsequent Nuremberg Trials were a series of twelve U.S...
. He was appointed head of the three-person Board of Soviet Repatriation of Displaced Persons in 1946 in Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, where he fought the forcible repatriation of people into the Soviet Union
Betrayal of the Cossacks
The Repatriation of Cossacks after WW2, also known as the Betrayal of the Cossacks, the Tragedy of Drau or the Massacre of Cossacks at Lienz refers to the forced repatriation to the USSR of the Cossacks and ethnic Russians who were allies of Nazi Germany during the Second World War.The...
, many of whom did not want to be "repatriated" and faced terrible persecution on their arrival in Soviet territory. He later was a witness in Jerusalem against Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Otto Eichmann was a German Nazi and SS-Obersturmbannführer and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust...
.
Musmanno had a lengthy career in civilian law. He served as a Pennsylvania state legislator; as an appellate attorney for Sacco and Vanzetti
Sacco and Vanzetti
Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were anarchists who were convicted of murdering two men during a 1920 armed robbery in South Braintree, Massachusetts, United States...
; as a judge in the common pleas court
Pennsylvania Courts of Common Pleas
The Pennsylvania Courts of Common Pleas are the trial courts of the Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania .The Courts of Common Pleas are the trial courts of general jurisdiction in the state....
of Allegheny County (1934–1951), Pennsylvania; as a judge in the county court in the same (1932–1934); and ultimately, as a justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania is the court of last resort for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It meets in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.-History:...
from 1952 to 1968. There, he was conspicuous in his minority opinion in the obscenity
Obscenity
An obscenity is any statement or act which strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time, is a profanity, or is otherwise taboo, indecent, abhorrent, or disgusting, or is especially inauspicious...
case against Henry Miller
Henry Miller
Henry Valentine Miller was an American novelist and painter. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of 'novel' that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is...
's "Tropic of Cancer
Tropic of Cancer (novel)
Tropic of Cancer is a novel by Henry Miller which has been described as "notorious for its candid sexuality" and as responsible for the "free speech that we now take for granted in literature." It was first published in 1934 by the Obelisk Press in Paris, France, but this edition was banned in the...
" which in Musmanno's view was "Not a book, but a cesspool, an open sewer, a pit of putrefaction, a slimy gathering of all that is rotten in the debris of human depravity."
Musmanno spent much of his life interested in the plight of the working man, and in his Italian heritage. Beginning in 1929, the then-state legislator fought to banish the Coal and Iron Police
Coal and Iron Police
The Coal and Iron Police was a private police force in the United States established by the Pennsylvania General Assembly but employed and paid by the various coal companies. The origins of the Coal and Iron Police begin in 1865...
, a private police force that beat worker John Barkoski
John Barkoski
John Barkoski was a worker, murdered by being beaten to death with pick-axes by the Coal and Iron Police February 9, 1929. Two of the police responsible for his death were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter, and his widow was paid $13,500 by the Pittsburgh Coal Company as compensation, as...
to death. The police force was banished in 1935 after Musmanno wrote a play, "Black Fury"
Black Fury (1935 film)
Black Fury is a 1935 American crime film starring Paul Muni, Karen Morley, and William Gargan. It was adapted from the short story "Jan Volkanik" by Judge Michael A. Musmanno and the play Bohunk by Harry R...
, that became a movie. After the successful effort, Musmanno wrote a book of the same name
Black Fury (novel)
Black Fury is an historical novel by the American writer and judge Michael Musmanno developed from his script of the same name: Black Fury ....
.
Musmanno is also remembered for his involvement in the anti-Communist sedition
Sedition
In law, sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority to tend toward insurrection against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent to lawful authority. Sedition may include any...
case of 1950 against Steve Nelson
Steve Nelson (activist)
Stjepan Mesaros, best known as Steve Nelson was a Croatian-born American political activist. Nelson achieved public notoriety as the political commissar of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War and a leading functionary of the Communist Party, USA...
, who was leading a regional branch of the American Communist Party. The Communists sold tracts for $5.75 to Musmanno, who declared the store "the equivalent of an advance post of the Red Army." Musmanno used the resulting publicity to secure his election to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania is the court of last resort for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It meets in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.-History:...
. Nelson initially received a 20-year prison sentence, $10,000 in fines and $13,000 in prosecution costs. The Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
ultimately threw out the case, saying federal law superseded the state law under which Nelson was prosecuted.
Musmanno described the incident in a book, "Across the Street from the Courthouse," one of 16 he wrote. He also gave an account of his 1932 debate with Clarence Darrow
Clarence Darrow
Clarence Seward Darrow was an American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, best known for defending teenage thrill killers Leopold and Loeb in their trial for murdering 14-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks and defending John T...
, "The Story of Italians in America," and "Glory & The Dream: Abraham Lincoln, before and after Gettysburg."
Musmanno was very proud of his Italian heritage, and among his numerous books was one arguing that Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...
was the first European to discover the new world. Musmanno attended the Mount St. Peter Church
Mount St. Peter Church
Mount Saint Peter Church is a Roman Catholic Church at 100 Freeport Road in New Kensington, Pennsylvania. The church is located along the Allegheny River and is approximately north-east of the city of Pittsburgh...
in New Kensington, and on 11 November 1951, he was the first lay orator to stand in the Pulpit of the newly dedicated building.
Musmanno was also intensely religious, and the last of his many dissenting opinions was against overturning an assault/attempted rape conviction where the trial judge instructed the jury to seek God's guidance in reaching their decision. Justice Musmanno concluded:
I am perfectly willing to take my chances with [the trial judge] at the gates of Saint Peter and answer on our voir dire that we were always willing to invoke the name of the Lord in seeking counsel in rendering a grave decision on earth, which I believe the one in this case to be.
Miserere nobis Omnipotens Deus!
Justice Musmanno died the following day, October 12, 1968, on Columbus day
Columbus Day
Many countries in the New World and elsewhere celebrate the anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas, which occurred on October 12, 1492, as an official holiday...
.
Horace Stern
Horace Stern was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania from 1 November 1952 to 29 December 1956. He was elevated to the Chief Justice position after serving on the Court from 6 January 1936....
—when asked if he read Musmanno's dissenting opinions, said he was not "interested in current fiction."
Not long afterward, however, the court issued a ruling in which this Justice participated, and the wording was unquestionably similar to that in one of Musmanno's dissenting opinions.
This was no surprise, being that Musmanno participated in both decisions: in Perpetua v. Philadelphia Transportation Company, Musmanno wrote the dissenting opinion, while in Koehler v. Schwartz, he wrote the prevailing opinion, with Stern voting the same as Musmanno. Belli added that Chief Justice Stern "lived to regret" his insulting remark.
Musmanno is buried in Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia, is a military cemetery in the United States of America, established during the American Civil War on the grounds of Arlington House, formerly the estate of the family of Confederate general Robert E. Lee's wife Mary Anna Lee, a great...
. His former home in Stowe Township is now a historic landmark.
Books
- The Library for American Studies in Italy, [Rome], 1925.
- Proposed Amendments to the Constitution (monograph), U.S. Government Printing Office, 1929.
- Black Fury (film script), Trinacria, 1935.
- After Twelve Years (about Sacco–Vanzetti case), Knopf, 1939.
- The General and the Man (biography of Mark W. Clark), Mondadori, 1946.
- Listen to the River (novel), Droemersche Verlagsanstalt, 1948.
- War in Italy (autobiographical), Valecchi, 1948.
- Ten Days to Die, Doubleday, 1950.
- Across the Street from the Courthouse, Dorrance, 1954.
- Justice Musmanno Dissents (compilation), foreword by Roscoe Pound, Bobbs–Merrill, 1956.
- Verdict!: The Adventures of the Young Lawyer in the Brown Suit, Doubleday, 1958.
- The Eichmann Kommandos, Macrae, 1961.
- The Death Sentence in the Case of Adolf Eichmann: A Letter to His Excellency Itzhak Ben-Zvi, President of the State of Israel, Jerusalem, [Pittsburgh], 1962.
- Man with an Unspotted Conscience: Adolf Eichmann's Role in the Nazi Mania Is Weighed in Hannah Arendt's New Book (pamphlet), [New York], 1963.
- The Sacco–Vanzetti Case, [Lawrence, KS], 1963.
- Was Sacco Guilty?, [New York], 1963.
- The Story of the Italians in America, Doubleday, 1965.
- Black Fury (novel)Black Fury (novel)Black Fury is an historical novel by the American writer and judge Michael Musmanno developed from his script of the same name: Black Fury ....
, Fountainhead, 1966. - Columbus Was First, Fountainhead, 1966.
- That's My Opinion, Michie Company, 1967.
- The Glory and the Dream: Abraham Lincoln, Before and After Gettysburg, Long House, 1967.