HI VM44: You asked, 
JFR only served as a "fill-in" Judge for four days. The sitting Judge went on vacation, and asked JFR to sit in for him. This is common practice and is one way that attorneys gain Judicial experience for future appointments or elections as Judges.During the four days he served there were 4 cases on the Docket. Two were continued, so JFR only heard two minor cases as an "acting" Judge.There is no record of JFR ever being asked again to serve as an "acting" Judge. Also, he was never appointed or elected to a Judicial position of his own. In all fairness to JFR, he may have gotten wrapped up in the Bible Students religion before he could move forward in his career. So, we will never know if he would have gone on to serve in more Judicial cases, or even get appointed or elected. Thank God! we will never know!After I deal with Jury Selection, then I will get into the Indictment before going on to Trial Questions and Answers. The Indictment is fairly large. There were 4 Counts, but each Count had many sub-parts ... so the Government's case was not a minor charge. Also there were 42(?) items in the Bill of Particulars used as evidence against the Defendants.
"During the trial,did Rutherford, being the highly skilled lawyer and former Judge he was, help prepare the legal defense for himself and the other defendents? This would be interesting to know."
The Trial Transcript does not say that he acted in any sense to prepare or support his own case. If he did, we will never know. If he had truly been a "co-chair" in his own defense, the Transcript would have listed him as co-counsel of record, because there were other Defendants represented by the same law firm. The only Defense counsel mentioned is the law firm they hired. I will name that firm in my next post.Given some of the activities it would be easy to speculate that JFR was savvy to the proceedings, and as such he likely had influence on his attorneys, and/or influenced his co-defendants to accept the advice of counsel.While JFR was not formally educated in law through university, he did pass the Missouri Bar exam - answering oral question before a Bar Panel. That was a common practice in those days ... and he met the test. He did practice law, and represented some high profile clients. JFR was not stupid, but he was not the brightest attorney in town.JFR only served as a "fill-in" Judge for four days. The sitting Judge went on vacation, and asked JFR to sit in for him. This is common practice and is one way that attorneys gain Judicial experience for future appointments or elections as Judges.During the four days he served there were 4 cases on the Docket. Two were continued, so JFR only heard two minor cases as an "acting" Judge.There is no record of JFR ever being asked again to serve as an "acting" Judge. Also, he was never appointed or elected to a Judicial position of his own. In all fairness to JFR, he may have gotten wrapped up in the Bible Students religion before he could move forward in his career. So, we will never know if he would have gone on to serve in more Judicial cases, or even get appointed or elected. Thank God! we will never know!After I deal with Jury Selection, then I will get into the Indictment before going on to Trial Questions and Answers. The Indictment is fairly large. There were 4 Counts, but each Count had many sub-parts ... so the Government's case was not a minor charge. Also there were 42(?) items in the Bill of Particulars used as evidence against the Defendants.