Excerpts from the Oral History of Hal Haddon - Part 2

This episode is part two of the Excerpts from the Oral History of Hal Haddon. This covers Hal Haddon's description of his work on seven nominating commissions to identify candidates for federal judicial appointments in Colorado under Presidents Carter, Clinton, and Obama, and on the founding of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar in 1978. 

In Hal Haddon's Oral History he was interviewed by Stephanie Howard. The full Oral History can be found here at 10thCircuitHistory.org

Transcript

Haddon Part 2 - JA and CCDB 6.24 Version

Fri, 6/24 12:06PM • 16:27

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

colorado, criminal defense, death penalty, commission, criminal defense lawyers, nominated, 10th, judge, federal district judge, trial lawyer, federal judges, terms, senator, tort reform, lobbying, state, podcast, chaired, community, qualified

SPEAKERS

Leah C. Schwartz, Tina Howell, Hal Haddon, Stephanie Howard

Leah C. Schwartz  00:07

Hello and welcome to Tales from the 10th  a podcast about the rich history, culture and contributions of the Tenth Circuit courts. I'm your host Leah Schwartz, Wyoming lawyer and former 10th circuit law clerk

Tina Howell  00:19

And I'm the producer Tina Howell the Emerging Technologies Librarian and for the Tenth Circuit. 

In a previous episode, we excerpted the stories of two specific cases from the oral history of Hal Haddon a lauded Denver trial lawyer. In this episode, Mr. Hadden describes his work on certain federal judicial appointments in the district of Colorado. He also describes his involvement in the development of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar. While Haddon expresses his opinions about the nominating process, those opinions are his own. We at the podcast offer his recollections for their historical value. To listen to Haddon's complete oral history, please visit 10thCircuitHistory.org.

Hal Haddon  01:10

Typically, in the United States, certainly, truly even now and more so in the '60s and '70s. If you wanted to be a United States District Judge, you had to have the necessity of the blessing and the nomination of the senior United States Senator from the party in power.  

So if there was a Democratic president, and he wanted to be a federal judge who had to have the blessing of senior Democratic senator in Colorado, there was a lot of criticism of that, then and now that led to much cronyism.  

When Jimmy Carter got elected president 1976 Carter was an advocate of significant reform. Gary Hart had already been elected to the Senate two years earlier, and 74 ABA, the American Bar Association was pushing the bill the notion that instead of centrally senatorial courtesy, there ought to be federal judicial nominating commissions. In states where there were vacancies and commissions should be bipartisan.  

They should consist of distinguished members of the community, not just the legal community, but leaders in the community that who are not lawyers, and that there ought to be a nonpartisan process for sending names to the United States senators for their consideration ends with the President, the President's consideration.  

So all that converged in 1977, because Carter became president, and he was an advocate of this very new judicial commission selection process for federal judges, and Gary Hart and Floyd Haskell. At the time, were the two Democratic senators in Colorado.  

So Hart and Haskell decided that they would try this commission process rather than simply suggesting that some of their best friends be nominated. And as an aside, Senator Hart asked me before we started the first commission, whether I wanted to have one of the two judicial vacancies which were available.  

I said, no, I think we need to establish this commission process. I think we need a lot more diversity on the bench. And I think that commission process gives a lot of credibility to people who go through it because it will be thought of as not simply being political acts and favorites, but people who really have qualifications to be federal judges.  

So with President Carter's blessing, Gary Hart and Senator Floyd Haskell started the first federal judicial nominating commission in Colorado in 1977. There was one vacancy during the first commission, which I sat on, which was chaired by a Republican named Chester Alter who was the Chancellor of University of Denver and a marvelous guy.  

That resulted in Judge Kane being nominated. Judge Kane who had utterly no political credential or contacts, who was a fabulous Federal District Judge going on some 45 years. And then two more vacancies came up in 1978. I was very keen to have a woman on the federal bench. And one of the few women state district judges in Colorado, was a woman named Zita Weinshienk. She was a District Judge in Denver District Court and she was, by coincidence was the judge I tried the Sneed case in front of which we talked about yesterday, and very capable, very able woman.  

She applied, went through the process, was selected as one of six who were recommended to the President and President Carter nominated her and nominated Jim Carrigan, who was on the Colorado Supreme Court at the time.  They were both confirmed.  

So within the process, three years this commission produced three confirmed nominees, including an extraordinarily qualified woman for the federal bench, and they also served with great distinction. As you know, the Republicans in Colorado have never followed that process. They always have a small group which vetts potential nominees, I think, for ideological purity. They don't go through the bipartisan process that we've gone through.  

I have now sat on seven of those commissions. I chaired one for Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell. I co-chaired three, four Senators Michael Bennett and Mark Udall. My co-chairs were always Republicans, Becky Kourlis and Candy Figa.

Stephanie Howard  05:39

In some of those commissions, we also had some judges of color appointed.

Hal Haddon  05:45

Ben Nighthorse, Campbell became a U.S. Senator in I think, was 1992, Bill Clinton had just been elected. We had a Democrat in the White House. And at the time, Senator Campbell was a Democrat. He decided later to become a Republican. But he was a Democrat at the time, and he appointed me to chair a judicial selection commission. 

 There were two openings. He and I agreed that it was essential that persons of color be put on the U.S. District Court mentioned Colorado. There had never been any, and it was long past time. So his priority, and his direction to me was find me the most qualified persons of color. 

 Right in this room, we had three or four meetings where we interviewed probably 40 or 50 applicants. Ultimately, we sent to the Senator and the president, a list which consisted of three very qualified black applicants, one very qualified Hispanic applicant and two very qualified White men. President Clinton nominated Wiley Daniel, who served with great distinction as the first and black federal district judge in Colorado for about 30 years. He recently died, he did not nominate the Latino person that I thought he should have, that's how we got Wiley Daniel.  

Later, during the Udall/Bennett process, we sent up the names of Ray Moore, the second black federal district judge to be nominated and confirmed to the Colorado district bench, and Judge Martinez is now serving on the political district bench.  And those were all results of a commission prod sets that looked at merit and prioritize diversity in states where senators simply pick people who are their friends are thought of as politically correct. So you don't have that kind of diversity.

Stephanie Howard  07:48

The impact of that obviously can't really be overstated to improve the diversity of the bench in terms of gender or race or ethnicity. There is another aspect of your influence in the legal community in Colorado, that I think is really important to include here. 

And that influence is from you from the firm together. But the fact is that for many, many years Haddon, Morgan & Foreman has really been at the heart of the the criminal defense community in Colorado. And I wanted to just read a couple of words from an old speech. From a time when you won an award from the criminal defense bar.

I think what sums up what I'm trying to say in a much more articulate way are the statement of Larry Pozner, who is on his own, certainly a notable trial lawyer in Colorado. And these are his statements about you. Back from your award, dinner

Hal Haddon  1986 

Stephanie Howard

86

What Larry said is,  

You have a calendar that is filled to overflowing, yet daily, you take time to answer our calls. We call for advice in terms of preparation, and you take time to talk to us. We call for guidance in our times of trouble, and you take time to give it to us. We call after our loss and in our disappointment. And you take time to give us solace.  

And we call and we call. We call to say, Hal, do you have any cases on this point? Hal, let me tell you what the DA is trying to do to me. Hal, this judge is ordering me to do this. Hal, do you have the name of an expert I could call? For years the word has been in this city and across the state. "Why don't you give Hal Haddon a call." And you have always answered it. 

 And Hal so great has been your magnetism that you have formed around you such a firm with Brian and Lee and Norm and Saskia. But the greatest tribute is that now we  do not simply say, "Why don't you give Hal Haddon a call." We say, "Why don't you give Hal's firm a call?" It doesn't make any difference who answers the phone, you'll get an answer, they'll have time for you. 

 In the political world, they keep your name and number, we know that that world is open to you. They've recognized your talents, we understand that you could be on a jet to Berlin, but you're in a car on the way to Brighton. And we know that you know it too. We know you would rather defend the accused than defend the government who accuses them. You've made us all so very proud to be known as criminal defense lawyers.  

I wanted to include that because I think that that is a perfect summary of how you, not just for yourself, but also for this law firm created a community when there wasn't really one. And I wonder if you would take a moment to talk about one of the core tenants of that community, which is the formation of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar.

Hal Haddon  11:08

When the public defender system was first started and founded in 1970, there was no organized criminal defense bar. And most criminal defense lawyers simply responded to judges calls to come handle a Court appointment quite often for no fee. 

After the public defender system got up and running and was doing recognizable, competent work, where your criminal defense lawyers started to recognize that they were unique things that we needed to do in terms of advocacy for various parts of criminal justice, sentencing reform, open discovery, named the two that were very much at issue in the 1970s. 

And the umbrella organization, sort of the Bar Association for trial lawyers, in that time in the 70s was CTLA, the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association, and the criminal defense bar was was sort of a, a, a small, small group that was recognized and some CLE programs would go on and CTLA four criminal defense, I would present to their Sealy conferences in their annual meetings.

But they were mostly interested in civil personal injury work and the predominant number of their members were PI lawyers, civil commercial litigators. And so in 1972, I think it was the United States Supreme Court abolish the death penalty in Furman versus Georgia. 

But they didn't abolish it for all time, they abolished it with suggestions that if states adopted death penalty statutes that had more specifics in terms of juror findings of aggravating and mitigating circumstances, that the death penalty might be reinstated. 

And so it was a huge legislative battle in every state in the country and especially in Colorado where there was always a strong if not majority-driven at that time, consensus that the death penalty ought to be abolished, because it was not only immoral, but it imposed enormous costs on the criminal justice system and its participants and even victims. 

So after Furman versus Georgia, there was this move in the Colorado State Legislature to readapt, the death penalty. And there was also at the same time, a lot of agitation for tort reform, to limit the amounts of damages that certain personal injury, plaintiffs could receive and limit the amounts of fees that the plaintiffs lawyers could receive and limit some defenses.  

So all those things are swirling around in the Colorado State Legislature in the late 1970s. And I and a couple of my friends, including my partners, Lee Forman, and Bryan Morgan, very much tried to get the CTLA which had a strong lobbying arm, to lobby against the reinstitution of the death penalty.  

And what happened was that they essentially traded tort reform, some legislation, they wanted to limit tort reform for the reinstitution of the death penalty. And they didn't lobby against the reinstitution of the death penalty.  

Seven of us, all criminal defense lawyers--all seven of us became so angry that in 1978 we formed the Colorado criminal defense bar, which was designed to CLE programs, newsletters, mailings and essentially lobbying to the extent that seven of us could pull off that feat, lobbying with the state legislature and the governor's office and regulatory agencies on behalf of criminal justice issues as we perceive them -- sentencing reform, bail reform, discover reform.  

So we established that organization in 1978. It's now grown to be more than 1,000 strong. In my view, it's the most effective public statement lobbying organization for criminal justice reform issues in the state and in many ways around the country. And so that was the seeds of it, and my partners, Bryan Morgan, and Lee Forman, and myself are three of the seven founders of that organization,

Stephanie Howard  15:45

The legacy of the CCDB lives on, obviously, and it's, as you said, an incredibly effective organization in terms of working to advance criminal justice reform in Colorado.

Leah C. Schwartz  15:56

This episode was produced and edited by Tina Howell. Subscribe and download as the Historical Society's website 10th circuit history.org Or at Apple podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher. Special thanks

Tina Howell  16:09

to Greg Kerwin, Brent Cohen, Stacey Guillon and Diane Bauersfeld.

Leah C. Schwartz  16:14

Thanks so much for listening