William Joseph Campbell

William Joseph Campbell (March 19, 1905 – October 19, 1988) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Campbell was born in Chicago, Illinois, and was a graduate of St. Rita of Cascia High School.

Admitted to the Illinois Bar, he was an attorney for Travelers Insurance Company in Chicago from 1925 to 1930, Campbell was in private practice in Chicago until 1940, opening the firm of Campbell and Burns.

The new firm's first major client was the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago.

It was at this time that Campbell first got involved in Chicago Democratic politics.

He received a Bachelor of Laws from Loyola University Chicago School of Law in 1926 and a Master of Laws from the same school in 1928.

An early supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Campbell formed the Young Democrats for Roosevelt in 1932.

For his efforts he was named Illinois administrator for the President's National Youth Administration in 1935, where he served until 1938 when he was designated United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois where he served until 1940.

As a federal prosecutor, he helped convict Al Capone of tax evasion and challenged the city's political leaders and their system of influence.

Campbell was nominated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on September 24, 1940, to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, to a new seat authorized by 54 Stat.

219. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on October 7, 1940, and received his commission on October 10, 1940.

He served as a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States from 1958 to 1961, and as Chief Judge from 1959 to 1970.

He assumed senior status on March 19, 1970.

He served as Assistant Director of the Federal Judicial Center from 1971 to 1988.

His service terminated on October 19, 1988, due to his death in West Palm Beach, Florida.

At the time of his death, he was the longest-tenured federal judge in the United States.

Early in his time on the bench he conducted one of the few treason trials ever held in the United States.

The case was a mass trial of the parents of Herbert Hans Haupt, his aunt and uncle, and two family friends.

Prior to sentencing, Campbell gave a long speech.

The defendants in this case stand convicted of the crime of treason and it now becomes the solemn duty of the Court to fix punishment and impose sentence.

Where offenders stand convicted of serious crimes against the United States, it is customary for the Court, in pronouncing sentence, to recapitulate rather fully the testimony offered during the trial.

This Court will depart from that procedure for the  reason that the testimony is Still Fresh in the minds of all participants in the trial.

These defendants had a fair trial, a thing of the past in the country they sought to befriend.

How different this trial was from the treatment given in Germany to persons accused of similar offenses against the German Reich.

Here, an able, considerate and patient jury of men and women from every walk of life, representative of the finest ideals of our American commonwealth was carefully chosen by both sides.

This jury heard the evidence and rendered a verdict after listening to lengthy summations and arguments ably presented by counsel.

As was indicated at the time of the argument on the motion for a new trial, the Court made its own abstract of the testimony in this case day by day as the trial progressed.

The five days preceding the argument on the motion for a new trial were devoted exclusively by the Court to a careful and exhaustive review of this abstract and of the transcript of the testimony herein.

The Court feels that the verdict of the jury is well founded in the evidence.

In pronouncing sentence upon these six men and women, this Court is constrained to give full consideration to the fact that our nation, and every man, woman and child in it, are engaged in a global death struggle against forces of tyranny and evil unprecedented in the history of mankind.

Our enemies seek to destroy us both by force of arms on our far-flung battle fronts and through disaffection and treacherous sabotage within our own borders.

The home front in our titanic struggle against the enemy is equally important and certainly more vulnerable than our battle lines.

This is a war of people against people, as well as cannon against cannon.

To endanger this home front, therefore, is as treasonable as the act of spiking our guns in the face of the foe.

Deliberately and in secret, under the cloak of American citizenship, the agents and helpers of the saboteur scheme and connive to destroy their neighbors and this nation.

Here then is the most iniquitous offense on the unholy list of crimes, an offense which imperils at one and the same time the structure of our government, the production of the tools for victory, the lives of our production workers and citizens, and the very ideals of free humanity.

It is the Court's duty in sentencing these defendants to make sure that the punishment meted out to them will act as a timely and solemn warning to all who would attempt to commit the smallest act of sabotage, as well as to those who would treasonably traffic with the enemies of the United States.

Likewise the sentence must serve notice upon the enemy that the cunningly devised scheme for the use of American citizens of German birth as pawns in the game of sabotage and espionage in this Country is doomed to failure.

Citizens threatened with the torture of their relatives in Germany for failure to assist German agents in this Country must be impressed with the personal danger involved in yielding to such contemptible coercion.

A jury of their peers has held these three men and their respective wives guilty, and justice must be done them.