Has the Court Left the Attorney General Behind? The Bazelon-Katzenbach Letters on Poverty, Equality, and the Administration of Criminal Justice

Authors

Yale Kamisar, University of Michigan Law SchoolFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1966

Abstract

Distribution of the first preliminary draft of the proposed American Law Institute Model Code of Pre-Arraignment Procedure last June touched off a brisk exchange of letters between Chief Judge David Bazelon of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, who maintained that the proposed code left a good deal to be desired, and Attorney General Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, who, although he did not explicitly treat any provision of the preliminary draft, sharply challenged the conception of equality underlying Bazelon's criticism of it. By now, both the code, and the Bazelon-Katzenbach correspondence which it evoked, are surely among the most widely read and discussed "confidential" documents of our time.1

Recommended Citation

Kamisar, Yale. "Has the Court Left the Attorney General Behind? The Bazelon-Katzenbach Letters on Poverty, Equality, and the Administration of Criminal Justice." Ky. L. J. 54 (1966): 464-98.