Asa P. French

Asa Palmer French (January 29, 1860 – September 17, 1935)[3][4] was an American attorney who served as the United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts from 1906 to 1914.[1]

Asa P. French
United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts
In office 1906–1914
Preceded by	Melvin O. Adams
Succeeded by	George Weston Anderson
Personal details
Born	(1860-01-29)January 29, 1860[1] Braintree, Massachusetts United States
Died	September 17, 1935(1935-09-17) (aged 75)[1] Wellesley, Massachusetts United States
Resting place	Central Cemetery, Randolph, Massachusetts
Nationality	American
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Elisabeth Ambrose Wales
Residence	Randolph, Massachusetts[2]
Alma mater	Yale University[2]
Occupation	Attorney

Early life

French was born on January 29, 1860 and in 1877 he began attending Thayer Academy as one of its first students and graduated in 1878 with Thayer Academy's first ever graduating class. His father was a Commissioner of the Court of Alabama Claims. In 1882 French graduated from Yale University, where he served on the tenth editorial board of The Yale Record[5] and was a member of Skull and Bones.[3] He subsequently studied law at Boston University.[2]

Career

In 1896, French came to prominence, with James E. Cotter, as court-appointed junior counsel for Thomas M. Bram, who was successfully prosecuted by Sherman Hoar, with Justice Edward Douglass White presiding, then sentenced to hang, for a triple axe-murder committed aboard the Herbert Fuller on the high seas. French and Cotter secured a second trial on writ of error, Bram v. United States,[6] but he was, again, found guilty. Bram maintained his innocence, was released from prison in 1913, became a successful restaurateur, and was pardoned by President Woodrow Wilson, in 1919.[4][7][8]

From 1901 to 1906, French was the district attorney for the Southeastern District of Massachusetts.[2] In 1905 he was an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican nomination for Massachusetts Attorney General.[9] In 1906, he was appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt to serve as the United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts. He was re-appointed by President William Howard Taft in 1910 and remained U.S. Attorney until 1 November 1914 when he resigned to enter private practice.[2]

In 1916, he testified before the United States Senate during the confirmation hearings of United States Supreme Court nominee Louis Brandeis. Of Brandeis, French said: "Mr. Brandeis has, in my experience, the reputation of being a man of integrity, a man of honor, a man who is conscientiously striving for what he believes to be right".[2]

French was elected to serve as a member of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention of 1917, representing the Massachusetts Fourteenth Congressional District. [10]

In 1920, French was a counsel for the complainants in a $150,000,000 suit against William Rockefeller and other former directors of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad. He split a fee of more than $800,000 with four other lawyers.[4]

French died on November 17, 1935.[1]

References

1. "French, Asa Palmer". PoliticalGraveyard.com. The Political Graveyard. Retrieved 6 September 2011.
2. Nomination of Louis D. Brandeis: hearings before the subcommittee of the Committee on the judiciary, United States Senate, sixty-fourth Congress, first session, on the nomination of Louis D. Brandeis to be an associate justice of the Supreme court of the United States. 1916. pp. 769–770.
3. Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale University Deceased during the Year 1935-1936, New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1935–1936, pp. 23–4
4. "Asa Palmer French, Leader of Bar, Dies" (PDF), The New York Times, New York, New York, 18 September 1935
5. "Record Editors". The Yale Banner. New Haven: Thomas Penney and G. D. Pettee. 1877. p. 182.
6. Bram v. United States, by Justice Edward Douglass White, Wikisource.
7. "Mutiny and Murder"; The World; New York, New York; July 22, 1896, p. 1.
8. "L. H. Monks' Death Recalls Sea Crime"; The Boston Globe; Boston, Massachusetts; 13 Sep 1927, p. 28
9. Speech of Dist. Atty. Asa P. French: candidate for the Republican nomination for attorney general, at the summer outing of the Norfolk Club, Hotel Pemberton, Hull, 15 July 1905. 1905.
10. Bridgman, Arthur Milnor (1919), A Souvenir of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention, Boston, 1917-1919, Stoughton, MA: A. M. (Arthur Milnor) Bridgman, p. 72.