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Dear Mr. Skiba,
<BR><U>You don't know what your talking about.</U>
<P>In the early 1970's, when all but a few(3 or 4), district magistrates
were removed for accepting gratuities---<U>Jules Melograne was among the
few not removed!</U>
<P>Jules grew up in the Hill District of Pittsburgh. If you know
Pittsburgh that says it all.
<P>The Gammage killing occured after Jules removal from office---and it
did not occur in Jules district. But, Jules might have caught it
if Gammage had lived to make it Downtown.
<P>Also, of interest, Jules Melograne was the last attorney to be admitted
to the Pennsylvania
<BR>bar under the old method of reading the law. He read the law,
took the bar exam and passed. The fact that he didn't go to a regular
law school hurt his political career and chances for advancement.
The local bar association never saw, in my opinion, Jules being "white"
enough. Whats a poor kid going to do?
<P>In struggle with the likes of you,
<BR>Thomas Lehman
<P>Edward E Skiba wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE>Thomas Lehman wrote:
<BR>>Dear Doug and the Left Business Observers,
<BR>>On the subject of youth, hormones, and the impact of an Asian crisis;
<BR>>all I can say is that I was young once too.
<BR>>
<BR>>On June 17th an old political friend of mine, former district justice
<BR>>for Allegheny County & Pittsburgh, Jules Melograne was sentenced
to 27
<BR>>months in Federal prision for fixing traffic tickets. Yes, that's
<BR>>correct traffic tickets! Had Jules ever taken any money for
fixing
<BR>>hundreds of tickets between December of 1990 and July of 1993?
No, he
<BR>>had not.
<BR>>Although, he did admit to having accepted one or two fruit baskets
and
<BR>>on one occassion he had let an errant handyman, plaster some cracks
in
<BR>>his courtroom.
<BR>>
<BR>>According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Olga Melograne asked for
mercy
<BR>>for her husband, who wept as he apologized in a brief statement to
<BR>>U.S.District Judge Donetta W. Ambrose. "All my life I've helped
people
<BR>>out," Jules Melograne said.
<BR>>
<BR>>If I could sum Jules up in a word; that word would be tolerant.
It's a
<BR>>pretty sorry state of affairs when the Federal government puts a 70
year
<BR>>old man away for helping common people out. Jules is not perfect;
but
<BR>>this is terrible!
<BR>>
<BR>>Does this mean, that in the eyes of the Federal Government, a local
<BR>>district justice or magistrate has no discretion on how to handle
minor
<BR>>local matters like traffic tickets?
<BR>>
<BR>>Sincerely,
<BR>>Thomas Lehman
<BR>>
<BR> I have been reading this
list since volume #97 and while I don't
<BR>always agree with everyone's pontifications, I do feel most LBO'ers
are
<BR>sincere and honest in attempting to understand the complex nature of
our
<BR>lives under Late Capitalism. That is, until I read the above
post. I am a
<BR>resident of the city of Pittsburgh and I followed this case in The
<BR>Pittsburgh Post Gazette as it unfolded and IMHO the remarks of Mr.
Lehman
<BR>are total bullshit. This is not a case of a kindly white-haired
judge
<BR>fixing a few tickets but a textbook example of widespread and systematic
<BR>judicial corruption which lasted many years. Mr. Lehman makes
no mention of
<BR>the many local District Justices who were brought down along with Melograne.
<BR>It worked like this: Your 16-year old kid gets a traffic ticket.
You call
<BR>the local Magistrate. He remembers you because you donated to
his election
<BR>campaign. The Magistrate calls the Tipstaff at the courthouse
downtown.
<BR>The Tipstaff talks to Melograne and the fix is in! Is this not
a clear
<BR>example of the "Old Boy Network" in its purest form? It does
not matter if
<BR>money changed hands or not, although I am not sure it did not.
Mr. Lehman
<BR>does not mention that there were HUNDREDS of tickets fixed. Of
these, how
<BR>many Black people got their tickets fixed? Don't forget, this
is the same
<BR>courthouse where the Brentwood Police Officer who killed Jonny Gammage
was
<BR>aquitted.
<P> It matters not one whit if
Melograne was a kindly, urbane gentleman
<BR>with a heart of gold. So were many of the old Southern Plantation
owners.
<BR>What matters is the part he played in what amounted to a continuous
criminal
<BR>enterprise of corruption and cronyism which grew to such a magnitude
as to
<BR>become an embarassment to the local ruling class.
<P> You describe Melograne as
"an old political friend". In Pittsburgh
<BR>to have an "old political friend" means to be plugged into their network
of
<BR>relationships. Have you ever asked your buddy for any "favors"?
I am very
<BR>proud not to have any friends like Melograne. And I am very suspicious
of
<BR>people who apologize for the crimes of the Powerful.
<P>in struggle--ED</BLOCKQUOTE>
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