Massie Trial
Encyclopedia
The Massie Trial for what was known as the Massie Affair, was a 1932 criminal trial that took place in Honolulu, Hawaii
. Grace Hubbard Fortescue, along with several accomplices, was charged with murder
in the death of well known local prizefighter
Joseph Kahahawai
. Fortescue was the mother of Thalia Massie, who had brought charges that Kahahawai was one of a group of men that had raped her.
, the first president of the National Geographic Society
. Her marriage to Major Granville "Rolly" Fortescue, one of the sons of Robert Barnwell Roosevelt
, did not leave her as financially successful as she would have wished, but she nevertheless kept up appearances and raised her daughter Thalia with an American upper class
lifestyle.
Thalia Fortescue married Lieutenant
Thomas Massie, a rising United States Navy
officer. In 1930, Massie was stationed at Pearl Harbor
, where Thalia considered herself "above" the rest of the officers' wives and soon became an outcast. The marriage, apparently not terribly successful to start with, degenerated into heavy drinking and public fights.
On September 12, 1931 the couple attended a Navy event at the Ala Wai Inn, a Waikiki
nightclub. Thalia had another argument which ended with her slapping an officer and then storming out. Massie, not having witnessed the event, assumed she was tired and had gone home.
Several hours later the story changed. Thalia now not only described the assailants as "locals", but gave police a license plate number. Within hours the police arrested Horace Ida. Ida was not entirely surprised at first, as only a few hours earlier he had been involved in a near collision while driving his sister's car. Although there was no damage, an argument broke out with the other driver and one of his friends, boxer Joseph Kahahawai, slugged the woman. Upon his arrival at the police station, the charges with the altercation were never brought up—instead he found to his dismay that he was being charged with rape.
At first glance, the story seemed to hold water. Thalia's license plate was off by only one digit (or letter) and her description of the men, Ida and his friends, was fairly accurate. However, it later became known that the police taking Thalia's statement had in fact "told her" both pieces of information, apparently after hearing the name and description from the initial complaint filed by the woman driver. Riccio offers the following account of the incident involving Horace Ida:
Rear Admiral
Yates Stirling, Jr., Commandant of the US Navy's 14th Naval District (which included the islands), suggested that he simply collect up several Navy men, hunt down the group, and "string them up". In stories printed as the case developed, the local newspapers referred to the men as "thugs", "degenerates" and "fiends", while Thalia was described as "a white woman of refinement and culture".
As the case developed, cracks in the story immediately appeared. In order to have assaulted Thalia—an event so far unproven to have even occurred—it would have been extremely difficult to have then been involved in the near accident across town. Witnesses soon came forward who reported seeing Thalia followed by a white man only minutes before the alleged assault took place. This information was never reported in the trial that was to follow, nor was the fact that the police planted information. The police themselves were split on the case—many of the detectives were locals who saw the case was a sham and when they were denied access in the courtroom, they started to talk directly to the press.
Riccio:
Grace Fortescue, enraged by the stories and what she saw as an attempt to sully the name of her daughter and the family, arrived and started a public campaign to attack the defendants. Admiral Stirling was worried that if the story reached the mainland he would be made to look as if he did not have control of the situation. The two groups successfully managed to keep the story out of the mainland press while the trial continued. Yet they also pressed the courts for a quick and aggressive prosecution to placate an enraged Navy.
In court the case quickly fell apart. After a three-week trial and lengthy jury deliberation, the jurors declared themselves deadlocked and a mistrial was declared.
Debating what to do, they eventually decided to dump Kahahawai's body off Koko Head
, at the time a desolate area far away from urban Honolulu. Although he would eventually be found, it seemed to them unlikely that anyone would care. They wrapped Kahahawai in a sheet and put him in Fortescue's rented car, pulling down the shades to hide the interior. A police motorcyclist, alerted to the kidnapping, saw the blinds and considered it suspicious. He pulled them over and immediately arrested all four for murder.
This time the story could no longer be kept under wraps. The mainland press soon started printing stories where "the roads go through jungles and in those remote places bands of degenerate natives lie in wait for white women driving by". The fact that the men had not been convicted of the alleged rape only proved to the mainland press that Hawaii itself was a hotbed of anti-white racial hatred, not that they were innocent. That Fortescue herself had actually admitted to the crime was insubstantial. While the tensions in Hawaii were ready to erupt into race riot
s.
Clarence Darrow
, perhaps the most famous lawyer of his era, decided to dump his work on behalf of the Scottsboro Boys
and take on the defense for the sum of $40,000. Darrow was brought out of retirement by Louise Cromwell, an old family friend. Darrow, Fortescue, and the rest of the Roosevelt family were all Progressives
.
Throughout the trial, Thalia attempted to present herself as an innocent victim. This fell apart when the prosecutor, John Kelley, played on her feelings of superiority. She became enraged, ripped up a piece of evidence, and stormed from the stand. Although this would seem to be a prosecution victory, the courtroom erupted in supportive applause from the spectators.
The jury returned a verdict of manslaughter rather than murder. Racial tensions were so high that everyone had expected another hung jury. The mainland press exploded with even more stories and the situation in Hawaii grew more tense. Martial Law
was considered if rioting were to begin, by Admiral Stirling, who had considered imposing it from the start.
After a flurry of diplomatic maneuvering between Washington, DC and Honolulu, martial law was avoided. Instead, under pressure from the Navy, Territorial Governor Lawrence M. Judd
commuted the 10-year sentences of the convicted killers to one hour, to be served in his office. Days later the entire group, including the Massies, the two other Navy men, Fortescue and Darrow, boarded a ship and left the island in turmoil. Thalia and Massie divorced in 1934; she committed suicide in 1963; he died in 1987. Grace Hubbard died in 1979. Albert Jones died on September 23, 1966.
Charges against the surviving four defendants in the rape case were dropped since the prosecution's lead witness, Thalia Massie, had left the Territory and could not be forced to return to testify.
titled Blood & Orchids
, written for television by Norman Katkov, who based his teleplay on his own novel
of the same title. Though Katkov said that he based his novel on the Massie Affair, his novel and teleplay bear only a superficial resemblance to actual fact. Katkov changed all the names of the principal characters and added other characters for whom no historical warrant can be found (most notably, Police Captain Curtis Maddox, supposedly the one conscientious law-enforcement officer who ever investigated the affair). Katkov's story also departs significantly from actual events in many ways, such as making the murder of Kahahawai look like a crime of passion—and laying all the blame on Lieutenant Massie and not on Grace Fortescue.
Max Allan Collins's
1996 novel, Damned in Paradise, follows the facts of the case more closely than Katkov's book. An entry in his series about Depression-era private eye Nate Heller, Damned in Paradise casts Heller as the personal investigator for Darrow after the famed attorney is retained to represent Lt. Massie, Grace Fortescue, and the other defendants accused of Kahahawai's murder. Collins also includes fictionalized depictions of such historical figures as John Jardine, one of the actual Honolulu police detectives who investigated the case, and Chang Apana
, the real-life inspiration for Charlie Chan
, who was still an active-duty detective in HPD at the time of the Massie case (though there's no official record to suggest that Chang was actually one of the investigating officers). As is often the case in the Heller series, Collins provides an alternate solution as to who might have been responsible for Mrs. Massie's rape.
In his afterword to Damned in Paradise, Collins suggested that Robert Traver's
1958 novel, Anatomy of a Murder
, was loosely inspired by the Massie case, involving, as it does, a military officer who murders the alleged rapist of his wife and the subsequent trial arising from that murder, with the setting changed from Honolulu to Michigan's
Upper Peninsula, and the Naval officer changed to an Army officer. However, in 1952 Traver himself defended an Army officer accused of the murder of his wife's alleged attacker, and, despite the striking parallels to the Massie incident, it is more likely that this was case from which Traver derived his plot.
convention at the Hawai'i Convention Center in Honolulu, on August 3, 2006, Lt. Gov. James Aiona
served as the judge at the mock trial, using a copy of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency
report compiled by the then Territorial Government
and using 21st century forensic techniques, looked into the rape case once more. Lawyers attending the convention acted as the Jury.
After testimony from two experts, and new arguments about the case, the lawyers voted with a unanimous "Not guilty" verdict for all defendants. Among other deciding factors was the defense's evidence that the five men accused of the rape had been involved in violence on the other side of Honolulu (the near collision with the Peeples's car) near the time of the alleged attack on Massie and would not have been able to reach Waikiki in time to have also raped Massie as she described.
In a coincidental historical twist, the Hawaii Convention Center — where the mock trial was held — sits on the former Ala Wai Inn, where the case first started.
Honolulu, Hawaii
Honolulu is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Hawaii. Honolulu is the southernmost major U.S. city. Although the name "Honolulu" refers to the urban area on the southeastern shore of the island of Oahu, the city and county government are consolidated as the City and...
. Grace Hubbard Fortescue, along with several accomplices, was charged with murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
in the death of well known local prizefighter
Prizefighter
A prizefighter is a boxer.Prizefighter may also refer to:*Don King Presents: Prizefighter, a video game by 2k Sports released in 2008*Prize Fighter, a video game by Digital Pictures released in 1994 for the Sega CD...
Joseph Kahahawai
Joseph Kahahawai
Joseph "Joe" Kahahawai Jr. was a Native Hawaiian prizefighter accused of the rape of Thalia Massie. He was abducted and killed after he was freed by a mistrial.-Early life:...
. Fortescue was the mother of Thalia Massie, who had brought charges that Kahahawai was one of a group of men that had raped her.
Background
Grace Hubbard Fortescue was the granddaughter of Gardiner Greene HubbardGardiner Greene Hubbard
Gardiner Greene Hubbard was a U.S. lawyer, financier, and philanthropist. He was one of the founders of the Bell Telephone Company and the first president of the National Geographic Society.- Biography :...
, the first president of the National Geographic Society
National Geographic Society
The National Geographic Society , headquartered in Washington, D.C. in the United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational institutions in the world. Its interests include geography, archaeology and natural science, the promotion of environmental and historical...
. Her marriage to Major Granville "Rolly" Fortescue, one of the sons of Robert Barnwell Roosevelt
Robert Roosevelt
Robert Barnwell Roosevelt, also known as Robert Barnhill Roosevelt , was a sportsman, author and United States Congressman from New York .-Biography:...
, did not leave her as financially successful as she would have wished, but she nevertheless kept up appearances and raised her daughter Thalia with an American upper class
American upper class
See: millionaire for more details-Millionaires:See also: MillionairesHouseholds with net worths of $1 million or more may be identified as members of the upper-most socio-economic demographic, depending on the class model used...
lifestyle.
Thalia Fortescue married Lieutenant
Lieutenant
A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
Thomas Massie, a rising United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
officer. In 1930, Massie was stationed at Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...
, where Thalia considered herself "above" the rest of the officers' wives and soon became an outcast. The marriage, apparently not terribly successful to start with, degenerated into heavy drinking and public fights.
On September 12, 1931 the couple attended a Navy event at the Ala Wai Inn, a Waikiki
Waikiki
Waikiki is a neighborhood of Honolulu, in the City and County of Honolulu, on the south shore of the island of Oahu, in Hawaii. Waikiki Beach is the shoreline fronting Waikīkī....
nightclub. Thalia had another argument which ended with her slapping an officer and then storming out. Massie, not having witnessed the event, assumed she was tired and had gone home.
Territory of Hawaii v. Ben Ahakuelo et al.
Massie eventually tried to call his wife to make sure she had arrived safely—after several calls Thalia finally answered, but in a state of shock. Massie returned home and heard from Thalia that while walking home she had been assaulted and raped by several Hawaiian men. Over Thalia's objections, Massie immediately phoned the police, who arrived to take her statement. Initially she could not provide any details at all, stating that it was too dark to identify any of the men or to see any details of the car they emerged from.Several hours later the story changed. Thalia now not only described the assailants as "locals", but gave police a license plate number. Within hours the police arrested Horace Ida. Ida was not entirely surprised at first, as only a few hours earlier he had been involved in a near collision while driving his sister's car. Although there was no damage, an argument broke out with the other driver and one of his friends, boxer Joseph Kahahawai, slugged the woman. Upon his arrival at the police station, the charges with the altercation were never brought up—instead he found to his dismay that he was being charged with rape.
At first glance, the story seemed to hold water. Thalia's license plate was off by only one digit (or letter) and her description of the men, Ida and his friends, was fairly accurate. However, it later became known that the police taking Thalia's statement had in fact "told her" both pieces of information, apparently after hearing the name and description from the initial complaint filed by the woman driver. Riccio offers the following account of the incident involving Horace Ida:
Horace Ida, a young Japanese man, had borrowed his sister's two year old car and had attended a luau accompanied by his pals Joe Kahahawai, Benny Ahakuelo, David Takai and Henry Chang. At about 12:30 A.M, Horace suggested they call it a night. He and his friends piled into the car and left the luau.
As the car passed through an intersection in downtown Honolulu, Horace barely missed colliding with an automobile coming from the opposite direction. There was no contact between the two cars, but both drivers stopped and everyone piled out to argue the fine points of Hawaiian motor vehicle law.
The occupants of the other car were a Mr. and Mrs. Peeples. Mrs. Peeples was voicing her opinion of Horace Ida's driving skills when Big Joe Kahahawai (all six feet and more of him) hauled off and punched her in the face. Mrs. Peeples was equal to the challenge. She gave as good as she got. She clenched her fist, wound up, and to Big Joe's surprise, slugged him in the mouth! The incident was about to become a donnybrook. However, cooler heads prevailed, and the Peeples drove off to the police station to report the incident.
At the station, the Peeples gave Horace Ida's license plate as 58-895, and the police put out an all points bulletin for the car and its occupants. At about the same time, the police learned of the rape in Ala Moana Park, so it was only natural that they would assume that the occupants of the Ida car were more than likely the perpetrators of the assault on Thalia Massie.
Horace Ida and his friends were eventually located through the car's license plate and were brought before Thalia at the police station. She was unable to identify Horace Ida, who was wearing a brown leather jacket when she saw him. When asked the license number of the assailants' car, she did not remember it, but she later heard the plate number 58-895 being broadcast at the police station.
The next day, under further questioning, Thalia's story began to change. She now "remembered" that one of her assailants had been wearing a brown leather jacket and the license plate of the assailants' car was 58-805 (only one digit was different from the number of Horace Ida's plate). To the police, the case against Horace Ida and his friends began to look stronger. The five men insisted they were not part of any assault on a lone white woman walking through the darkness of John Ena Road. They explained their movements on the night at length. But the police were not persuaded. The five young men were indicted and charged with rape and assault.
Rear Admiral
Rear Admiral
Rear admiral is a naval commissioned officer rank above that of a commodore and captain, and below that of a vice admiral. It is generally regarded as the lowest of the "admiral" ranks, which are also sometimes referred to as "flag officers" or "flag ranks"...
Yates Stirling, Jr., Commandant of the US Navy's 14th Naval District (which included the islands), suggested that he simply collect up several Navy men, hunt down the group, and "string them up". In stories printed as the case developed, the local newspapers referred to the men as "thugs", "degenerates" and "fiends", while Thalia was described as "a white woman of refinement and culture".
As the case developed, cracks in the story immediately appeared. In order to have assaulted Thalia—an event so far unproven to have even occurred—it would have been extremely difficult to have then been involved in the near accident across town. Witnesses soon came forward who reported seeing Thalia followed by a white man only minutes before the alleged assault took place. This information was never reported in the trial that was to follow, nor was the fact that the police planted information. The police themselves were split on the case—many of the detectives were locals who saw the case was a sham and when they were denied access in the courtroom, they started to talk directly to the press.
Riccio:
While the good citizens of Honolulu waited for the trial to begin, rumors began to develop and spread through the city. There were those who whispered that Thalia had not been raped at all. It was said that she was having an illicit relationship with one of the five beach boy suspects, and that she was on her way to a rendezvous with him when she found him in the company of four drunken friends.
It was also speculated that Thalia was having an affair with one of Tommie's shipmates. When Tommie came home after the party, so the gossip went, he found his wife and his friend in flagrante delictoIn flagrante delictoIn flagrante delicto or sometimes simply in flagrante is a legal term used to indicate that a criminal has been caught in the act of committing an offence...
and it was Tommie who beat up his wife and broke her jaw.
Grace Fortescue, enraged by the stories and what she saw as an attempt to sully the name of her daughter and the family, arrived and started a public campaign to attack the defendants. Admiral Stirling was worried that if the story reached the mainland he would be made to look as if he did not have control of the situation. The two groups successfully managed to keep the story out of the mainland press while the trial continued. Yet they also pressed the courts for a quick and aggressive prosecution to placate an enraged Navy.
In court the case quickly fell apart. After a three-week trial and lengthy jury deliberation, the jurors declared themselves deadlocked and a mistrial was declared.
Territory of Hawaii v. Grace Fortescue, et al.
Grace Fortescue was not willing to wait for another trial and talked Thomas Massie into kidnapping Joseph Kahahawai, the darkest skinned of the five defendants, with the help of two Navy enlisted men-Albert O. Jones and Edward J. Lord. Kahahawai underwent "interrogation", as Fortescue, Massie and the two Navy men attempted to beat a confession out of him—eventually, one of the group of four shot Kahahawai.Debating what to do, they eventually decided to dump Kahahawai's body off Koko Head
Koko Head
Koko Head is the headland that defines the eastern side of Maunalua Bay along the southeastern side of the Island of Oahu in Hawaii. On its western slope is the community of Portlock, a part of Hawaii Kai...
, at the time a desolate area far away from urban Honolulu. Although he would eventually be found, it seemed to them unlikely that anyone would care. They wrapped Kahahawai in a sheet and put him in Fortescue's rented car, pulling down the shades to hide the interior. A police motorcyclist, alerted to the kidnapping, saw the blinds and considered it suspicious. He pulled them over and immediately arrested all four for murder.
This time the story could no longer be kept under wraps. The mainland press soon started printing stories where "the roads go through jungles and in those remote places bands of degenerate natives lie in wait for white women driving by". The fact that the men had not been convicted of the alleged rape only proved to the mainland press that Hawaii itself was a hotbed of anti-white racial hatred, not that they were innocent. That Fortescue herself had actually admitted to the crime was insubstantial. While the tensions in Hawaii were ready to erupt into race riot
Race riot
A race riot or racial riot is an outbreak of violent civil disorder in which race is a key factor. A phenomenon frequently confused with the concept of 'race riot' is sectarian violence, which involves public mass violence or conflict over non-racial factors.-United States:The term had entered the...
s.
Clarence Darrow
Clarence Darrow
Clarence Seward Darrow was an American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, best known for defending teenage thrill killers Leopold and Loeb in their trial for murdering 14-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks and defending John T...
, perhaps the most famous lawyer of his era, decided to dump his work on behalf of the Scottsboro Boys
Scottsboro Boys
The Scottsboro Boys were nine black teenage boys accused of rape in Alabama in 1931. The landmark set of legal cases from this incident dealt with racism and the right to a fair trial...
and take on the defense for the sum of $40,000. Darrow was brought out of retirement by Louise Cromwell, an old family friend. Darrow, Fortescue, and the rest of the Roosevelt family were all Progressives
Progressive Party (United States, 1912)
The Progressive Party of 1912 was an American political party. It was formed after a split in the Republican Party between President William Howard Taft and former President Theodore Roosevelt....
.
Throughout the trial, Thalia attempted to present herself as an innocent victim. This fell apart when the prosecutor, John Kelley, played on her feelings of superiority. She became enraged, ripped up a piece of evidence, and stormed from the stand. Although this would seem to be a prosecution victory, the courtroom erupted in supportive applause from the spectators.
The jury returned a verdict of manslaughter rather than murder. Racial tensions were so high that everyone had expected another hung jury. The mainland press exploded with even more stories and the situation in Hawaii grew more tense. Martial Law
Martial law
Martial law is the imposition of military rule by military authorities over designated regions on an emergency basis— only temporary—when the civilian government or civilian authorities fail to function effectively , when there are extensive riots and protests, or when the disobedience of the law...
was considered if rioting were to begin, by Admiral Stirling, who had considered imposing it from the start.
After a flurry of diplomatic maneuvering between Washington, DC and Honolulu, martial law was avoided. Instead, under pressure from the Navy, Territorial Governor Lawrence M. Judd
Lawrence M. Judd
Lawrence McCully Judd was a politician of the Territory of Hawaii, serving as the seventh Territorial Governor. He was devoted to the Hansen's Disease-afflicted residents of Kalaupapa on the island of Molokai.-Life:...
commuted the 10-year sentences of the convicted killers to one hour, to be served in his office. Days later the entire group, including the Massies, the two other Navy men, Fortescue and Darrow, boarded a ship and left the island in turmoil. Thalia and Massie divorced in 1934; she committed suicide in 1963; he died in 1987. Grace Hubbard died in 1979. Albert Jones died on September 23, 1966.
Charges against the surviving four defendants in the rape case were dropped since the prosecution's lead witness, Thalia Massie, had left the Territory and could not be forced to return to testify.
In popular culture
In February 1986, CBS-TV aired a four-hour miniseries produced by Lorimar ProductionsLorimar Productions
Lorimar, later known as Lorimar Television and Lorimar Distribution, was an American television production company that was later a subsidiary of Warner Bros., active from 1969 until 1993...
titled Blood & Orchids
Blood & Orchids
Blood & Orchids is a 1986 made-for-TV crime-drama film. Written for the screen by Norman Katkov, it was an adaptation of Katkov's own novel which, in turn, was inspired by the 1932 Massie Trial in Honolulu, Hawaii...
, written for television by Norman Katkov, who based his teleplay on his own novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
of the same title. Though Katkov said that he based his novel on the Massie Affair, his novel and teleplay bear only a superficial resemblance to actual fact. Katkov changed all the names of the principal characters and added other characters for whom no historical warrant can be found (most notably, Police Captain Curtis Maddox, supposedly the one conscientious law-enforcement officer who ever investigated the affair). Katkov's story also departs significantly from actual events in many ways, such as making the murder of Kahahawai look like a crime of passion—and laying all the blame on Lieutenant Massie and not on Grace Fortescue.
Max Allan Collins's
Max Allan Collins
Max Allan Collins is an American mystery writer. He has written novels, screenplays, comic books, comic strips, trading cards, short stories, movie novelizations and historical fiction. He wrote the graphic novel Road to Perdition , created the comic book private eye Ms...
1996 novel, Damned in Paradise, follows the facts of the case more closely than Katkov's book. An entry in his series about Depression-era private eye Nate Heller, Damned in Paradise casts Heller as the personal investigator for Darrow after the famed attorney is retained to represent Lt. Massie, Grace Fortescue, and the other defendants accused of Kahahawai's murder. Collins also includes fictionalized depictions of such historical figures as John Jardine, one of the actual Honolulu police detectives who investigated the case, and Chang Apana
Chang Apana
Chang Apana was a Chinese-Hawaiian member of the Honolulu Police Department, first as an officer, then as a detective. He is the officially acknowledged inspiration for the fictional Asian detective character, Charlie Chan.-Early life:Ah Ping Chang was born December 26, 1871 in Waipio, Oahu,...
, the real-life inspiration for Charlie Chan
Charlie Chan
Charlie Chan is a fictional Chinese-American detective created by Earl Derr Biggers in 1919. Loosely based on Honolulu detective Chang Apana, Biggers conceived of the benevolent and heroic Chan as an alternative to Yellow Peril stereotypes, such as villains like Fu Manchu...
, who was still an active-duty detective in HPD at the time of the Massie case (though there's no official record to suggest that Chang was actually one of the investigating officers). As is often the case in the Heller series, Collins provides an alternate solution as to who might have been responsible for Mrs. Massie's rape.
In his afterword to Damned in Paradise, Collins suggested that Robert Traver's
John D. Voelker
John D. Voelker , better known by his pen name Robert Traver, was an attorney, judge, and writer. He is best known as the author of the novel, Anatomy of a Murder published in 1958...
1958 novel, Anatomy of a Murder
Anatomy of a Murder
Anatomy of a Murder is a 1959 American courtroom crime drama film. It was directed by Otto Preminger and adapted by Wendell Mayes from the best-selling novel of the same name written by Michigan Supreme Court Justice John D. Voelker under the pen name Robert Traver...
, was loosely inspired by the Massie case, involving, as it does, a military officer who murders the alleged rapist of his wife and the subsequent trial arising from that murder, with the setting changed from Honolulu to Michigan's
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
Upper Peninsula, and the Naval officer changed to an Army officer. However, in 1952 Traver himself defended an Army officer accused of the murder of his wife's alleged attacker, and, despite the striking parallels to the Massie incident, it is more likely that this was case from which Traver derived his plot.
2006 mock trial
During the American Bar AssociationAmerican Bar Association
The American Bar Association , founded August 21, 1878, is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. The ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of academic standards for law schools, and the formulation...
convention at the Hawai'i Convention Center in Honolulu, on August 3, 2006, Lt. Gov. James Aiona
James Aiona
James R. "Duke" Aiona, Jr. is an American politician who served as Lieutenant Governor of Hawaii from 2002 to 2010. He is of Hawaiian, Chinese, and Portuguese descent...
served as the judge at the mock trial, using a copy of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency
Pinkerton National Detective Agency
The Pinkerton National Detective Agency, usually shortened to the Pinkertons, is a private U.S. security guard and detective agency established by Allan Pinkerton in 1850. Pinkerton became famous when he claimed to have foiled a plot to assassinate president-elect Abraham Lincoln, who later hired...
report compiled by the then Territorial Government
Territory of Hawaii
The Territory of Hawaii or Hawaii Territory was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 7, 1898, until August 21, 1959, when its territory, with the exception of Johnston Atoll, was admitted to the Union as the fiftieth U.S. state, the State of Hawaii.The U.S...
and using 21st century forensic techniques, looked into the rape case once more. Lawyers attending the convention acted as the Jury.
After testimony from two experts, and new arguments about the case, the lawyers voted with a unanimous "Not guilty" verdict for all defendants. Among other deciding factors was the defense's evidence that the five men accused of the rape had been involved in violence on the other side of Honolulu (the near collision with the Peeples's car) near the time of the alleged attack on Massie and would not have been able to reach Waikiki in time to have also raped Massie as she described.
In a coincidental historical twist, the Hawaii Convention Center — where the mock trial was held — sits on the former Ala Wai Inn, where the case first started.