Francis X. Morrissey
Questions were raised about Morrissey's honesty with the Senate about his resume and his legal education, which included a Georgia diploma mill law degree.The Boston Globe in 1966 won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for its articles on Morrissey and his nomination to the Federal bench.[11] This was an issue in part because in 1934 Morrissey had unsuccessfully run for the Massachusetts legislature, a candidacy that required residency in the state as of January 1, 1934.Yet Morrissey testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that he had lived in Georgia for at least six months after his graduation from the Southern Law School in September 1933.[10][12] Morrissey finished twelfth of sixteen candidates in the September 20, 1934, primary for the Suffolk County Ward 2 seat in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, receiving 420 votes.[26] Robert F. Kennedy, the United States Attorney General, asked the American Bar Association for an informal review of Morrissey's qualifications for the Federal bench and was advised that the A.B.A.[30][22] Senator Kennedy told Burton Hersh that “Frank had a great desire to go on the federal court” and that Morrissey's wife “was very insistent” on the nomination.When he was appointed to a municipal judgeship in Boston several years ago, his legal qualifications for even that judicial post were questioned.[44] Morrissey's nomination was endorsed by John McCormack, speaker of the United States House of Representatives; Jacob J. Spiegel, a justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court; and Cardinal Richard Cushing, Archbishop of Boston.[48] The A.B.A.’s Albert Jenner testified that an investigation of Morrissey could find almost no evidence that he had tried cases in state or Federal court or that he had briefed or argued appeals in Massachusetts.[53] Not voting were Senators John L. McClellan, Jacob Javits, Hiram Fong, Edward V. Long, Birch Bayh, and Joseph Tydings.quickly investigate and wrote to Senator Eastland, chairman of the Judiciary Committee that Morrissey had spent months in Georgia at the time.[51] Leverett Saltonstall, the other United States Senator from Massachusetts, withdrew his support from Morrissey because of the questions about the nominee's background raised at the hearing and asked for further investigation.“He was young and he was poor, one of twelve children, his father a dock worker, the family living in a home without gas, electricity or heat in the bedroom.As a child of this family, Judge Morrissey could not afford to study law full-time.”[2] But Kennedy surprised the Senate by then ending the fight for his confirmation by sending the nomination back to the Judiciary Committee.[61] Morrissey in 1967 had accepted $4,000 from Massachusetts businessman Edward Krock, who was being investigated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission at the time of the payment.The payment from Krock, a large contributor to Kennedy political campaigns, was revealed by The Boston Globe’s Spotlight investigative reporting team in May 1973.[62] The prior month Krock had been indicted for Federal income tax evasion; he never went to trial as he lived the rest of his life in the Bahamas, from which he could not be extradited.[66] Francis Jr. was suspended from the bar in 1995 over his conduct in an admiralty case[67] and disbarred in 2009 after being convicted of felonies involving the will of philanthropist Brooke Astor.