Table Of ContentABA Senior Lawyers Division
Women Trailblazers in the Law
ORAL HISTORY
of
RUTH I. ABRAMS
Interviewers: Alice Richmond
Elaine M. Epstein
Dates of Interviews:
February 6, 2009
October 11_, 2009
February 15, 2010
June 11, 2010
October 22, 2010
ORAL HISTORY OF THE HON. RUTH 1. ABRAMS (Ret.)
THIRD INTERVIEW
February 15, 2010
This is the third interview of the oral history of Ruth Abrams which is being taken on behalf of
Women Trailblazers in the Law, a Project of the American Bar Association Senior Lawyers
Division. It is being conducted by Elaine Epstein on February 15, 2010.
Epstein:(cid:9) This is Interview No. 3 with Ruth Abrams. This is Elaine Epstein
and we have just been talking about going back to some
memories of some things starting with why you applied to law
school. So, let's start there.
Abrams:(cid:9) I love mysteries and when I graduated from Radcliffe, or before I graduated, I
wrote to the FBI that I would like to be an FBI Agent. I received a response
which said that all of their agents were lawyers or accountants and that did help
push me towards law school and going to law school. When I graduated from law
school I also wrote to the FBI and their response was all their agents were men.
So that is one of the boundaries that has broken down subsequently. The Judge
who I called on New Years day was Frank Good. That is in the second tape and I
will correct that. Then when I went to the District Attorney's Office, the first rule
was I couldn't go into the courtroom when there were any rape or sexual cases
because the jurors would think the case was unimportant.
Epstein:(cid:9) Unimportant because a woman would be there?
Abrams:(cid:9) Unimportant because if it were really bad, a women wouldn't be there.
Epstein:(cid:9) And so the jurors would have been all men on those cases?
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Abrams:(cid:9) Jurors were all men at that time because women were exempted if they had
children, if they were teachers, there is a whole history of discrimination against
women as jurors in this state on juries.
Epstein:(cid:9) That's fascinating because that is something that even someone like myself, who
is no youngster, is unaware of. By the time I was in courtrooms there were
women on juries.
Abrams:(cid:9) That's right and I will bring the date next time, because there is a history of
women being sort of excluded by having so many exemptions, teachers, mother,
grandmother, whatever. There were mostly men jurors but the fear was that in a
sexual case if I were there, people would think it was an unimportant case.
Epstein:(cid:9) So you stayed away?
Abrams:(cid:9) Well, one of the victims said she didn't want to go in the courtroom with no other
women there. So they sent me up.
Epstein:(cid:9) So, this would have been about what year?
Abrams:(cid:9) This would have been in the DA's office, let's see, when was I a DA in the 60's
because in 1968 I went to the Attorney General's Office. But by that time that
rule changed. The DA's and the lawyers no longer thought that if I were in
courtroom the jurors would think that the case was unimportant.
Epstein:(cid:9) So on this case where the victim asked that women accompany her, what was
your role?
Abrams:(cid:9) Just to be with her.
Epstein:(cid:9) So you sat with her?
Abrams:(cid:9) I sat with her and talked to her beforehand and told her what kind of questions the
Assistant was going to ask her. The Assistant DA who was trying the case (James
Waldren) was very happy to have me there because he said I could elicit more
information than he ever could.
Epstein:(cid:9) After that did you begin working on any rape or sexual assault cases?
Abrams:(cid:9) Oh I certainly did and I had this wonderful case with Judge Robert Sullivan. The
defendant claimed that the victim was willing and consented to sex, therefore, he
didn't rape her. The defendant was on the witness stand. In cross examination,
for whatever reason, he kept saying she is a slut, she was willing, she pursued me.
So I stood up and I said to the Judge "ask him if he knows what being chaste is"?
So the Judge asks "do you know what being chaste is? And the answer was
"yeah, you run and someone runs after you". The judge struck all his evidence.
The police at first also didn't trust me because they were not used to a
woman, particularly with search warrants. They said women talk all the time,
she'll blab about it, we won't get any results. Mind you, I was drafting the
warrant.
Epstein:(cid:9) This was on any type of case they didn't trust you?
Abrams:(cid:9) Any type of case, they just didn't trust women. They hadn't seen women in the
courthouse; they hadn't accepted women jurors; there were no woman police
officers at that time and it was just a male club without any women.
Epstein:(cid:9) Which was certainly the common thing at the time. How did you deal with that?
Abrams:(cid:9) I just kept plugging away, just keep going everyday no matter what the insult was,
you couldn't get mad. You just had to keep going. I was doing the briefs and
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then on the Kerrigan case, Dick Kelly was trying it and he said to me "I would
really like you to be in the courtroom with me." They didn't have second seats at
that time. It was not a particularly standard procedure. He said "because I think
we will do better if somebody is there to help me when the difficulties arise. You
can tell me what I left out and what I missed."
Epstein:(cid:9) Smart guy. So you did that?
Abrams:(cid:9) So I did that, and then it became okay to have me as the second seat. And then
one day Jimmy Waldren didn't show up because he was sick. It was a drunk
driving case. The DA said to me "you've seen a million of them, go try it". And
that is how I got into the courtroom, but it took a lot of persistence and a
willingness to take second seat and a willingness to do the briefs and research on
cases that they didn't want me to be in the courtroom for. But you had to be
persistent. That was the biggest thing.
Epstein:(cid:9) Was that the first case that you tried in the DA's office yourself?
Abrams:(cid:9) A drunk driving case, absolutely.
Epstein:(cid:9) How did you do on it?
Abrams:(cid:9) The jurors then didn't think drunk driving was very serious. But when I talked to
the jurors after they convicted him, they thought it was more serious than usual
because I was prosecuting. One juror said to me "you must have had a child who
was killed in a drunk driving". Absolutely nothing to do with the case. But that _
was the first time a juror thought I was more important.
Epstein:(cid:9) Could you tell if jurors had any direct response to your being in the courtroom as
a woman?
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Abrams:(cid:9) No, you could not tell. I think the jurors were better than the law enforcement
personnel as a whole. Because law enforcement was a men's club and women
were coming in. But it was a much better reception with jurors.
Epstein:(cid:9) How did Judges react to your being in the courtroom?
Abrams:(cid:9) Variously. Different Judges reacted very differently. I was in the Somerville
District Court on a probable cause hearing on an armed robbery. When the case
was called, I stood up. The Judge went crazy, absolutely crazy. He accused the
D.A. of sending a secretary to do lawyer's work. He threatened to get the D.A.
disbarred for that and stomped off the bench. You could hear a pin drop in the
courtroom. I don't know who told him I was a lawyer, the clerk, the court officer
or the D.A. After awhile, he came out and sat on the bench and presided, but
didn't say much. He found probable cause. The first time I handled the list -- and
the list in Massachusetts is a call of all the cases because they had a little different
system then. The Judge who was coming in on Monday, Judge Hudson, was a
temperamental man. So they decided I would handle the list. Nobody else
wanted to be near him.
Epstein:(cid:9) As I recall the call of the list in Massachusetts could be controversial, what was
happening to each case.
Abrams: We had to send them to a session or decide whether to give a continuance or not
give a continuance, depending where they were on the list. On that first Monday
of the month there were at least 300 lawyers in that courtroom. I was the only
women. Judge Hudson was very heavy on sentencing. As a result, on the Friday
before he came, lawyers plea bargained out a zillion cases. Of course, when he
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started calling the cases and heard that one was plea bargained last week and that
one was disposed of, disposed of, disposed of, he lost his cool and he started
yelling at me. "Why were these cases on the list and why if they were disposed
of'. Of course we printed the list a week in advance so that the lawyers have
some notice of where they are on the list and what the problems are.
Epstein:(cid:9) And pre-computer, you can't just redo it?
Abrams:(cid:9) You cannot redo it, right. I just couldn't do it. He kept yelling at me and yelling
at me, and finally he said to me "And who was responsible for this list"? And I
said "I am". He called a recess and walked in his lobby. He asked the court
officer to send me in. I came in, the Judge said "I'm sorry I yelled at you and if
you run the list this month then you and I will get along as long as you continue to
be honest and take responsibility for the mistakes." We got along, we had no
incidents with him for a whole month. It was the best month the office ever had
with him.
Epstein:(cid:9) Did that alter that in any way how the office viewed your handling the list?
Abrams:(cid:9) Oh they were very happy; I couldn't miss a single day. It didn't matter if I were
on my death bed, I had to carry the list because they felt that he would listen to
me if we said we couldn't do it because the witness was missing or some defense
counsel would come up to me and say "Ruth please, I got a child that is going to
be operated on, could you get me a day or two off?" And I could smooth all of
that out. I became much more valuable to the District Attorney's office, and to
the defense bar in many respects because I could say to the Judge "he's got a
problem (and it was always he). He's got a problem this week with his child" and
we put it on next week or next month. It has nothing to do with the case, it has to
do with his personal life. And at first the Judge said "oh personal life doesn't
count" and I said "yes it does count". I said "he's got to be there with his wife
when that child is operated on, he just cannot be here."
Epstein:(cid:9) How did the Bar react to you?
Abrams:(cid:9) Well the Bar was getting much better because they could talk to me and it wasn't
quite like saying to some DA, I have a kid who is sick and I want to go to the
hospital with my wife. Because they (other DA's) would say "well, I have kids
and I'm here". But they felt they could say that to me. So the bar was getting
more and more warm. They were happy that I was running the list and they kept
saying "I hope you run it forever".
Epstein:(cid:9) Were you now trying cases?
Abrams:(cid:9) No, you couldn't try because I had to be available to the Judge 24/7, no matter
what happens. If it happened after hours, and we had to get a search warrant, they
had to go through me, so for that whole month I was the only person that
everybody had to talk to in order to keep the list manageable.
Epstein:(cid:9) Now after that month, what happened?
Abrams:(cid:9) I went back to drunk driving and cases like people who had too many cats in
possession and playing marbles in a school yard after 5:00 p.m., stealing hay on
the land o f another.
Epstein:(cid:9) This is in District Court?
Abrams:(cid:9) Well, but there was an appeal at that time to the Superior Court and these little
local courts would say "he stole hay on the land of another" and I was trying that.
One day, it was a warm day in June, Judge Vallely was the Judge. I said "Judge
this is a two witness case." He said "I want to be out of here by 2:00" (it was
about 11:30). I said "Judge there are two witnesses." There was a ban the bomb
rally and the Cambridge police arrested the sponsors for serving coffee and donuts
without a food license.
Epstein:(cid:9) Hard to imagine this is a criminal session, isn't it?
Abrams:(cid:9) I said "I will put one witness on and I think the Defendant will put one witness on.
I said there are all students, they are going to be leaving in June, we've got to get
a trial. He said "one witness"? I said "absolutely". So I put on the Clerk of the
City of Cambridge and she said "there was no license to serve any food. The
clerk went there with the police and the sponsors were serving food". I said
"what were they serving"? She said "coffee and donuts". I said "your witness".
The defense then said to her "do you know that the bomb can do this, can kill
millions of people, do you know how bad it is"? She said "I'm just the clerk".
The defendants then conceded that they served coffee and donuts without a
license. No motion for directed verdict was filed. Then the defense put one of the
defendants on the witness stand. The lawyer asked the question "and why were
you serving the coffee and donuts". He went into at least a half an hour about
why the bomb was bad. He kept going and finally I said "Judge, that is not the
issue". The Judge said agreed and "finish up". So now it was like quarter of one
and the Judge was getting furious because the courtroom wasn't air conditioned; it
was like 110 degrees in there. When the defense finished I said "no questions".
And I saw the Judge writing out not guilty on the verdict slip. The defense
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(cid:9)
counsel got up, because in Massachusetts the defense goes first, and went through
all of the evidence. It is getting beyond 1:00 and then defense counsel said
"Judge you can't find this man guilty because there is a case in West Texas" and
he gave the cite and argued for 45 minutes. He talked for 45 minutes on this case.
Then the Judge looked at me and says "Ill hear from you" and I said "you heard
the facts. You can decide". He was going to get rid of it because these people are
all students, but he found them all guilty. How to lose a case. I've never
forgotten that. Don't overstep your bounds.
Epstein:(cid:9) Was there a point that you felt you were handling more and more consequential
cases? And how did that happen?
Abrams:(cid:9) Yes. Experience with the police had to be earned because often the police would
say "she's got the case" and they were very reluctant to tell me all the evidence
they had. But as you got to know them, and I did do all the search warrants,
because you had to do it, they would come to me and say "is this adequate, is this
adequate"? So I got to be friendly with them and then they began to say "she can
really help". And the police I think pushed it more than the other DA's.
Epstein:(cid:9) When you say they pushed it, you mean pushed your being on cases?
Abrams:(cid:9) Yes, and then the other DA's (it was a part time job) as they wanted to go back
their offices. I wanted the experience. They would say "do you want to take a
B&E" and I w ould say "sure, why not". So I got more and more experience that
way and that is how I happen to do rape cases with Judge Sullivan.
Epstein:(cid:9) And of course you were persisting at all of this at a time when there were really
no other women around?
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Description:This is the third interview of the oral history of Ruth Abrams which is being children, if they were teachers, there is a whole history of discrimination
