E.
Clinton Bamberger Jr., pioneer in legal aid for poor
E. Clinton
Bamberger Jr., who died Sunday, Feb. 12, at age 90, was a Baltimore lawyer
credited with work over a lengthy and diverse career that shaped criminal and
civil law in Maryland and across the nation.
Baltimore
attorney argued before Supreme Court and created national system of legal aid
for those in need
E. Clinton Bamberger Jr., a
Baltimore attorney who helped shape the practice of criminal and civil law in
Maryland and across the nation over the past half-century, died Sunday at
Roland Park Place. The former Inner Harbor and
Bolton Hill resident was 90.
Mr. Bamberger spent most of his legal career fighting on behalf
of disadvantaged people — particularly children poisoned by lead paint — and in
1963 his defense of a convicted murderer led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling
for defendants' rights.
He also helped create a national legal support system for
low-income people and worked with lawyers in South Africa to assist blacks after
apartheid ended in that country in 1994.
"He was one of the giants of the profession," said
Herbert Garten, 88, a Baltimore attorney who has practiced in Maryland since
1954.
He said Mr. Bamberger "was very well respected here in
Maryland and nationwide and internationally. He was a pioneer in providing
civil legal services for the poor."
"He was a great man," said Michael Millemann, a
professor at the University of Maryland's law school. "Those words are
overused — but they apply in his case."
Mr. Bamberger's accomplishments early in his career continue to
influence the practice of civil and criminal law today.
In 1963, he represented convicted murderer John L. Brady of
Maryland before the U.S. Supreme Court in a case that led the high court to
rule prosecutors must give defendants any evidence they possess that may
indicate their innocence. Failure to do so is a violation of the 14th
Amendment, the court wrote in what has been known ever since as the "Brady
rule."
Legal experts have long hailed the decision as one of the most
significant developments in criminal justice law.
In 1958, an Anne Arundel County jury convicted Mr. Brady and an
accomplice, Charles D. Boblit, of first-degree murder. Both were sentenced to
death. Mr. Brady had admitted to being involved in the robbery that resulted in
the murder, but said Mr. Boblit had killed the victim. Mr. Boblit confessed
that he alone had committed the murder, but prosecutors withheld that
confession from defense lawyers in Mr. Brady's case.
Mr. Bamberger failed to convince the Maryland Court of Appeals
to grant Mr. Brady a new trial — but the court did order a new hearing on his
punishment, which was reduced to life in prison.
"I thought that was as far as I could go," Mr.
Bamberger said in a video interview maintained by Georgetown
University.
It wasn't. He appealed to the Supreme Court.
The high court sided with Maryland's court, but in its ruling
articulated the doctrine that's still invoked by defense attorneys when they
believe prosecutors are holding back evidence that could help their clients.
"This was a watershed opinion that has been of extraordinary
importance," Mr. Millemann said. "It balanced the playing field so
that fewer innocent people were convicted. It is used as a tool for fairness
every day in criminal trials across the country."
Another of Mr. Bamberger's accomplishments came in the late 1960s
when he helped develop the legal assistance system for low-income people.
In 1965, Sargent Shriver, director of the Office of Economic
Opportunity and architect of President Johnson's War on Poverty, picked Mr.
Bamberger as the first director of legal services at the federal Office of
Economic Opportunity.
The position empowered Mr. Bamberger to devise the first
national program to help the poor with civil legal problems. It was the
predecessor agency for what in 1974 was established by Congress as the Legal
Services Corporation, a nonprofit that today provides funding to 134 legal aid
organizations across the nation, including in Maryland.
Mr. Bamberger left a post as dean of the Catholic University of
America's law school to become executive vice president of the corporation in
1975 and stayed for five years.
In 1982, he joined the University of Maryland law school to
build its clinical law program into a nationally distinctive effort using law
students to provide free services to the poor.
"He was an extraordinarily important leader nationally in
the development of legal aid for the poor," Mr. Millemann said.
Mr. Bamberger wasn't done forging legal precedents. In 1984, he
successfully represented a West Baltimore woman in a lead paint case that gave
tenants more power over landlords.
Prior to the case, landlords had to remove lead paint only if it
was peeling or chipping or if a child had high lead levels in their blood. But
the judge ruled tenants were allowed to put rent into a court-controlled account
if lead-based paint was "easily accessible to a child," even without
signs of poisoning.
"Clint saw lead paint as a scourge that society and
government had let happen," said Del. Samuel I. "Sandy"
Rosenberg, a close friend who was mentored by Mr. Bamberger.
"Before he spoke out, we weren't taking the right steps
affecting the poor and many African-American children," Mr. Rosenberg
said. "He was the kind of lawyer that every law school student should
aspire to be."
In 1989, Mr. Bamberger became involved in developing legal aid
systems around the world, especially in South Africa prior to the end of
apartheid in 1994.
Born in Baltimore on July 2, 1926, he was the son of investment
banker E. Clinton Bamberger Sr., and his wife, Ann.
Mr. Bamberger enjoyed telling friends about spending time at a
relative's neighborhood grocery store near Calvert and Read streets.
He earned a Bachelor of Science degree at what is now Loyola
University Maryland and was a graduate of the Georgetown University Law Center
in 1951. He then worked as a law clerk for judges Charles Markell and Edward
Delaplaine.
He became an associate at Piper & Marbury in 1952, served as
state assistant attorney general from 1958 to 1959, then in 1960 became a Piper
& Marbury partner.
Mr. Bamberger became active in Democratic politics and ran for
Maryland attorney general in the 1966 primary election. He lost by 14,701 votes
to Francis B. "Bill" Birch.
In the late 1970s, in addition to his position at the Legal
Services Corporation, he taught poverty law to Harvard and Northeast University
students.
"The two things I have enjoyed most have been being a legal
aid lawyer and teaching, and now I can do both," he told the Washington
Post in 1979.
In recent years, Mr. Bamberger became
the first board member named to the Open
Society Institute-Baltimore, an organization that seeks to address
issues of poverty, criminal justice and education.
"Clinton was a rigorous thinker who had high ethical
standards and was fearless. He constantly reminded us that our job was to take
risks," said Diana Morris, the institute's director. "When he thought
there was a wrong done, he used the legal system to bring about justice."
She recalled Mr. Bamberger had hundreds of professional
connections — he had legal assignments and took sabbaticals across the world,
and made friends along the way. He and his wife also opened their home to
scores of visitors.
"He never tired of connecting people with good
causes," said Kalman R. Hettleman, a public education advocate and
longtime friend.
Mr. Bamberger's wife of 64 years, the former Katharine Kelehar,
a civic activist who also worked for Baltimore's poor, died in December.
Mr. Garten, a Democrat who was appointed in 2003 by President
George W. Bush to the Legal Services Corporation board, recalled the couple as
"the perfect pair."
Mr. Bamberger donated his body to the Maryland Anatomy Board.
Plans for a memorial service were incomplete. A memorial fund in his name has
been established at Viva House, 26 S. Mount St., Baltimore, 21223.
Survivors include a son, Edward C. Bamberger III of Timonium;
and three grandchildren. A daughter, Christine Ann Bamberger, died in 1998.
Copyright © 2017, The Baltimore Sun, a Baltimore Sun Media Group
publication
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to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
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"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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