The Convicted Murderer’s German Fortune and the Lawyer’s $5,000 Notes
Henry Craemer, jailed for killing a mother and child, says a rumored inheritance turned his appeal into a fight over legal fees and control of his case.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Statements published yesterday by J. L. Green about his controversy with other attorneys who claimed to act for Henry Craemer—convicted of murdering Mrs. Phillipena Mueller and her child—in his appeal to the supreme court are directly contradicted by Craemer and by G. F. Wegener, who has been active in his behalf. The contradiction has also brought out the fact that Craemer was believed to have inherited a fortune in Germany.
Wegener wrote to the Post-Intelligencer denying Green’s statements, and a reporter interviewed the prisoner at the county jail last night. Craemer said Soderberg was his first lawyer, appointed by the court. After the trial he notified Soderberg by letter that he wanted Green to attend to his appeal. Soderberg claimed he was appointed by the court and would not vacate until ordered; Craemer told Judge Humes he wanted Green, and the change was made.
Green, Craemer said, did not attend to the case properly. Instead of doing so without expecting consideration, as he had represented, about the first thing he did was induce Craemer to sign two demand notes for $5,000, which Green said were only a matter of form. Craemer learned that a party in Los Angeles had written to the proprietors of the brewery where he used to work, inquiring who he was and notifying them that a man of his name had inherited money in Germany. The brewery people sent the letter to Green, which Craemer guessed accounted for Green’s sudden interest in the notes. Craemer said he signed mechanically, without really knowing what he was signing, just after trial when he was nervous and unstrung. He was not satisfied with Green’s actions and discharged him; through friends, especially Wegener, he secured Fairfield & Gross and associated Reif & McCutcheon.
Wegener denied Green’s statement that he only wanted to hold a club over another man’s head. He said he was interested in the Craemer case because he considered it unjust that a man should not have a chance to appeal because he was too poor to pay the cost, and because he believed Craemer innocent.
“I signed those notes mechanically without really knowing what I was signing, for it was just after my trial and I was nervous and unstrung.”
The story turns on a familiar question: when a person is jailed and desperate, can consent to legal fees ever be meaningful? It also shows how a rumor of money can make a prisoner the object of competing attorneys.
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