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; havsor: In Sonora, Caton ef Lae 2 pink te fon? biography. Is thin oo Tse: Until Preached college age, when ; - TT went off co the University of Calle ” "T fornia in Berkeley.; But 1 almost didn’t i. 4d make it. Y was the valedictorian of my |. |} hiigh school ‘graduating class; but I had + to sue the principal to get my diploma.” PLAYBOY: How did. dhat, happen? | peti: “We © awas, brutally. attacked the eveiiing- before’ graduation—by a } huge bottle.of whiskey. 1 was so’sick the * “next day_that “couldn't get to school to. ee | found out-why, hi withheld my diploma. | =]: He was ‘adamant, so my father took me “go: see/an. old! family < friend, ‘a “judge. “When. the judgeheard the story, he said, “My eboy, "you've “been wronged!” And he: hauled out, of ‘his desk a couple of | writs, a replevir ya-bench warrant, a cou- ple of subpoen ‘duces iecums, a. habeas corpus, a ‘habeas -diploma,~a handful of old bail‘bonds, and he siuck all of them S4-together with notary public seals and — 4ved ribbon and he-marched over to the 4° school and: served ali of it on the princi-, pal. I got my diploma on. the spot. Up to” oD. eararetaien tr a ve mow anne . 1 being a, doctor, but.right-then 7 knew the law .was-for me. ee en oe ee ce aw so Thad to work my: way through college +- zas a;soda jerk, a summer farm hand and j + things like that. leven wrote off for free. + ‘samples of things like soap and shaving , .. eream and sold them to my fraternity = : Wrothers. After I graduated, I spent a _. year traveling around the, world on mer- * chant ships as an able-bodied seaman. H | Then I entered ithe University of Califor- _j inia Boalt Hail Law School. I stood a } lucky 13th ‘in’ a class of 150. : Sad oe "= lucky enough to get a job as a Govern- galupi.” 1 -was. supposed to submit re | ment investigntor, posing as an itinerant _ | ys moving around with the Okies.*! ‘ ports on what the Okies were talking | "4 about and what they wanted. I had a : -| card. with .a special Los Angeles tele- i .- phone number ‘to call if I ever got in ? _My name was supposed to bé “Joe Baci- “really bad trouble—not for just getting™ important. I never had to use it. One of © my first deep impressions was watching | Los Angeles deputy cops’ standing on ; ytrying desperately to get into the city to “get on relief rolls; or at least to get a. s qT ‘ was used as the basis for migratory- . “worker relicf in that arca. ; Moving out and about then, riding in and on and unaerneath freight cars, <“bumming,” standing in, soup lines, . _ sleeping in skid-row “jungles,” I don’t - imes J_got thrown out | Soue-th Souriwest ts _ make my peech, and when the principal | ~ - that day I’ had been thinking’ about 5. | | _ if . My father lost his-méney if the crash, _ \- _ In 1933, when I got my degree, I was | . t ah po 3a . { arrested or beaten up; it had te be really |. the“city. line clubbing back poor Okies : aneal. Eventually, 1 wrote a report that , @... 1 developed tsy. : Leth but 1 kao, pathy for te tndctdog deécp, sirong and it’s where T learned | - and thé outca. , about the kangaroo courts in this coun; ° try. Well, after that migratory holo in- : vestigation job ended —- Say, F seen: rr) _ be telling my life story. Do you reilly want to hear it? . . 4 pLayeoyY: Certainly. - , 4 + BEL: All Tight, you asked for iu Well; ; '* T got desk space in a small San Francisco a > Taw firm. But nothing happened. I just , ‘+ sat there. Finally, in 1934, a well-known : “. defense lawyer took me on for the lordly” : wage of $25 a month. ‘But nothing hap- ! pened thefe either, so I managed to save $20 and went down to Los ‘Angeles look-. i . ing for a better job. One big lawyer sole . there who turned me down I later op- i i 74 { ’ i i _j. posed in a case; I. won my client a may. $187,500 settlement. The guy could have” -| hired me in 1935 and sent me to Palm “Springs for the rest of my life at $100 a i . }iweek ‘and still saved his client money. ; : “1 "Now he tells people, “I recognized Belli, ‘as a comer the first time 1 saw lim.” ”: Sure he did! I know ever, since then, , I’ve never refused to see a guy fresh from : * Jaw school. You never can tell. . “4 I finally learned to quit waiting for ' business to find me. If 1 was going to get | any clients, | decided people would have to know I was around. I got the idea of spreading it around that I'd take, * _free of charge, any cases. of criminals in: Jots of trouble. One of the frit clients T° found was Avilez, “the Black-Gloved : Rapist.” He had been tried, convicted snd - - sentenced to a teralof 400 years. For what- > ever it was worth, I got 200 years knocked * off his scutence. He wrote me a uncatk- i: you noe. After that, J got a number of ~~ other hopeless cases—onc of them a con- | "y yicted counterfeiter who had resumed . ! printing the stuff right in San Quentin’s ‘ ; print shop.- : j Although I didn’t realize it at the | time; the case that first showed me the : imthing that would later get me on my way : \ was that of a young Negro convict { | naméd Ernie Smith. He had been indict-..: . | ed for murder for killing anowher con- ‘ "4 vict, in a fight in the San Quentin prison. ;. ca cage ee ot en seen nes ’ 4 . | about to throw a knife at him. I couldn’t ~. believe it, but the captain of the guard -{ confirmed for me that most of the con- victs carried knives. He showed me a _.Ldesk drawer full of over 2 husdred le 4 | thal-looking pigstickers, explaining, “We - take away the big ones.” Before ihe trial, : I served a subpocna on ihe captain of _ : the guard, ordering him to comes court with his drawer full of knives t admitted into. the evidence. Wale * past the jury box with it, I was struck a hell of a.thought. My wi.ole cuse, ¢ “4 argument ‘to determine ‘f Ernig 3ro . would, live or die, was i2 thal aes, So_.1, entally" . srumblee : chem pee yard. Smith told me. he had‘ done it inj - , |" self-defense, that the other man .was.. . sats BS eT iets hints a eer w