More trial lawyers necessary—Berman
Emile Zola Berman, counsel for Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, accused slayer of Sen. Robert Kennedy, urged law schools to motivate and prepare students for criminal practice in an address before the Law Alumni Association yesterday.
“Advocacy is the ultimate weapon of justice and the essence of human freedeom,” Berman said. “The courtroom is civilization’s monument to order, dignity, d to justice.”
“What a pity it is that advocacy—the art of the courtroom—is the most ignored specialty in modern law schools. Is it any wonder that it is, therefore, the least chosen specialty of law graduates?”
Berman said that corporate and tax work are less basic than trial practice to the ideal of justice. He charged that law schools do not adequately motivate and prepare students for criminal practice.
“Judges must observe almost every week how their own work is increased and their own function misdirected by the inept practicioner without training or experience,” he said.
“The burden is on us to make advocacy the absolute essential specialty to be taught, and the attractive rewarding practice, which it is.”
Suggesting that eight-week summer courses might be added to law programs to facilitate courtroom training, Berman also advocated that attorneys from trial lawyer associations and the judiciary be recruited as instructors in such programs.
“Democracy bottomed on government under law requires trial lawyers,” he said. “It is essential that the bench, bar and the law schools cooperate to stimulate, teach, and afford opportunities in advocacy.”
Tickets for 'Madwoman are on sale
Tickets for the French fantasy "Madwoman of Chaillot," which will be presented in Bovard Auditorium Monday through Saturday at 8 p.m., can be reserved by calling 746-6063, or by going to Parkview 304-A.
Ticket prices are $1.50 weeknights, and $2 Friday and Saturday. Students with ticket books will receive a special discount.
ASSC candidates to debate at noon
The ASSC presidential campaign will reach a peak today when the candidates debate from noon to 2 p.m. in the Open Forum area, at University Avenue and Childs Way.
This is the first major confrontation between all the candidates, climaxing a week of campaigning before the primary elections Tuesday and Wednesday.
The final speeches by candidates for ASSC president, AMS president and vice-president,before the primary,will be given at 8:15 p.m. Sunday at an Alpha Phi Omega meeting in the Student Activitiy Center. The meeting is open to the public.
Yesterday Ron McDuffie clarified a statement reported from Tuesday’s CACC meeting. He did not call for Troy Camp to be dropped, he said, but for the program to be reevaluated and changed if deemed necessary.
Also on tomorrow’s schedule is a debate between the foreign representative candidates in the Student Activities Center at 2 p.m.
The five polling places will be in front of Bovard Auditorium, on the Row at the International House, at the Medical School, between the dorms in Fagg Park, and between the Business School and the Law School.
Candidates for president are Michael Guarino, James Helfrich, Ed Hurst, Ron McDuffie, Fred Minnes, Joel Rosenzweig and Eric Cohen.
University of Southern California
DAILY ® TROJAN
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 1969, VOL. LX, NO. 90
Bell says LA. schools
need decentralization
By JOHN COFFLAND
The need for decentralization of the Los Angeles City School District to end parental and student dissatisfaction was expressed by Congressman Alphonzo Bell yesterday.
Bell, a candidate for Los Angeles mayor, told students that decentralization is needed to make people feel they are involved with the management of their education.
“The people feel they have no voice in what is going on,” Bell said. “Why should a whole district be dedicated to what the needs are in one area—be it West Los Angeles or Watts?”
Bell, a five-term congressman, suggested the establishment of an expanded School Board on the community level. These local boards, elected by the people they will serve, he said, would select textbooks, employ and evaluate personnel, and determine the curriculum for their respective areas.
“Decentralization of education would remove two of the primary sources of parental and student dissatisfaction with Los Angeles schools,” Bell said.
“The first is the lack of parental communication with policy-makers. The second is a centrally imposed curriculum that often is neither responsive nor relevant to he special needs of special areas.”
Regarding the current violence on high school campuses, Bell said he is confident that his plan for decentralization would be an effective deterant. In addition, he said that the mayor’s
office could have done more with existing powers to prevent disruptions.
“The mayor has to assume a larger role in these things,” Bell said. “He must be a powerful force to influence the differing factions involved. He must be an aggressive lobbyist for the 2,800,000 people of Los Angeles, whenever and wherever he can serve them.
Speaking under the sponsorship of the Great Issues Forum at noon in Founders Hall, Bell feels the five most urgent needs of the city are tax system, rapid transit, smog control, a program to reorganize the courts, and solutions to the economic problems in the city—especially for the people in deprived areas.
He said he already has a staff of specialists in urban affairs working on these problems.
“Leadership in a big city cannot be a one-man- show,” Bell said. “A mayor must recruit talent and then create an atmosphere where their suggestions can be put to work.”
He said he supports the action of the police on high school campuses last weekend and said as mayor he would support similar action in similar circumstances. However, he added that he would not send the police onto a campus without the consent of the administration, and with evidence that the law had been broken.
One of the top three contenders in the mayoralty primary of April 1, Bell received the endorsement of the Los Angeles Times Sunday.
At a prespeech luncheon, Bell warned, “We’re going to be in a helluva mess in a few years if we don’t make an administrative change.”
Foreign student knifed in theft attempt recovering
A Japanese foreign student, injured in an attempted robbery Tuesday was released from the Health Center yesterday, and said he was feeling much better.
The student, Naoki Watanabe, was stabbed in the left shoulder after he and a fellow student, Hisakaju Tajima, were accosted by two men on 34th Street near Bruce Hall.
“We were walking from class,” Watanabe said in an interview yesterday. “And two men came up to us, ‘Do you have a dollar?’ one asked. ‘Do you have some cigarettes?’
“ ‘I don’t have any,’ I said, which was true. Then I said ‘excuse me.’ But he said ‘Wait.’ And then he hit me.”
Watanabe said he tried to resist, but “the third
punch was very powerful.” He was knocked to the ground, and when he still resisted, one of the two assailants stabbed him with a small pocket knife.
Both Watanabe and Tajima continued to fight the two suspects and managed to escape.
Watanabe was treated at the Health Center for a puncture wound in the left shoulder and contusions about the left eye and right lower lip. Tajima was not injured, although his sweater was torn.
University Division police officially described the suspects as “one possibly of Latin descent and one possibly of Negro descent.”
Watanabe is from Tokyo majoring in political science.
Preaching trio fosters debate
At 9 a.m. yesterday, the cold, still campus silence was shattered by yells of “Jesus saves" and “Read the Bible or God will rejoice in your destruction."
Three men in their late 20's arrived on campuscarrying the paraphenalia of the trade, full packs, assorted religious buttons and signs proclaiming that God is the savior.
The men are Paul Mitchell, Bob Engel and Harvey Baldwin. They came from Long Beach, where they met about a year ago. They said they would wind up their two-day tour by preaching at UCLA today.
Student reaction to their preaching, which took place in front of Tommy Trojan, varied widely. The audience numbered about 50 students, mostly passers-by.
The men stressed that they are not affiliated with any particular church and are not students. During their stay, they partook in discussions with interested students, usually by interjecting quotes from the Bible, or saying that everyone had better be prepared for the Judgment Day.
The trio said they had no problems with the campus police here and didn't expect any at UCLA.
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Movies, talk fill weekend
Campus entertainment this weekend features a well-rounded program at the Cheshire Cat this evening.
At 8:30 p.m. an informal meeting with the candidates for ASSC president will begin at the Cat, to be followed by a series of student films on urban life at 9:30. At 10:30 Aileen Sanders, a singer, will perform for the first time at the Cat. Admission is 25 cents.
The Spring Fiim Festival will present “Luck of Ginger Coffay,” starring Robert Shaw, on Friday night, with shows at 7 and 9:15, in Founders Hall 133. Admission is $1.
Saturday night the WHA-MHA will present “When Comedy was King,” a collection of early film comedy, featuring such stars as Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy. “Skiing Thrils,” a 30 minute movie, will be the second feature. They will be shown in the Birnkrant dining hall.Admission is free.