1821-1879
John K. Hackett was born in Utica, New York, in 1921. His parents, James Henry and Katherine Hackett, “were prominent figures in the theatrical profession of their generation.”[i] Hackett grew up in New York City and graduated from New York University in 1837. He studied law in Utica before returning to New York City to study under William M. Evarts, a prominent legal figure of the era. Hackett was admitted to the Bar in 1842.[ii]
During the California Gold Rush of 1849, Hackett moved to San Francisco and practiced law with Eugene Casserly, who later represented California in the United States Senate. Hackett also served as Corporation Counsel of San Francisco before returning to New York City in 1857, where he became active in politics, joining an anti-Tammany wing of the Democratic Party led by Fernando Wood. In 1862, Hackett was appointed Assistant Corporation Counsel of New York City where he gained significant trial experience. In March 1866, with Boss Tweed’s support, Hackett was appointed to fill the vacant judicial position of Recorder on the Court of General Sessions[iii] when the incumbent, John T. Hoffman, was elected Mayor. Hackett was elected to a three-year term in November 1866 on the Tammany Hall ticket, and reelected to a six-year term in 1869.[iv]
Judge Hackett performed favors for the Tweed Ring while serving on the bench, including providing lenient treatment to, and dismissing criminal charges against, defendants with close ties to the Ring.[v] Several years later, however, Hackett was hailed in the press when he resisted Tammany’s patronage demands and “declined to allow the politicians to name his subordinates.”[vi] “Honest John” Kelly, Boss Tweed’s successor and Hackett’s old enemy, retaliated by refusing to endorse Hackett for reelection in 1875. Hackett ran on the Republican ticket, and with the endorsement of anti-Tammany Democrats he won reelection to a 14-year term by a “handsome majority.”[vii]
After his reelection, Judge Hackett continued feuding with Tammany Hall, which refused to provide him with private chambers or a “properly ventilated courtroom,” and introduced an embarrassing resolution “calling for an investigation of his sanity” after he became ill and “his mental faculties seemed to weaken in sympathy with his bodily ailments.”[viii]
Judge Hackett’s fawning obituary in the New York Times reads like an apologia for a jurist “often accused of malignity in giving long sentences to persons convicted of crime,” and whose hatred of crime “amounted almost to a mania.”
He always meant to be just, but there were times when his prejudices would make themselves felt in spite of himself. Those prejudices, however, were always in favor of the maintenance of order, and one fact stands on record in the man’s favor, which no amount of obloquy can efface, and that is, that he was a terror to evil-doers, and he deterred many from the commission of crime.[ix]
In 1870, Stephen McGrath, “a well-known First Ward politician,” was sentenced by Judge Hackett after pleading guilty to assault and battery. McGrath was accused of knocking down a young woman and committing an indecent assault on her. At his arraignment, he was released because the victim withdrew her complaint after receiving an unspecified payment. The incident became public, however, and the District Attorney decided to prosecute. A grand jury indicted McGrath and he pled guilty. In mitigation of his sentence, McGrath contended the victim was a prostitute who had, in any event, consented to withdrawal of charges. Judge Hackett declined to impose the maximum penalty — a year in prison and a $250 fine — and sentenced McGrath to six months in prison. The jurist’s comments about the victim status are notable.
The more abandoned a woman is the greater the crime (when confessed) of assaulting her. Her very bad character renders her really more defenseless than one of good character. Her bad character invites outrage because a defendant can meanly and cowardly intrench himself behind that as a lever against her very credibility. The worse a woman is the weaker she is in the eye of the law and the more to be protected. Her very loss of self-respect and sense of degradation perhaps may make her amenable to cheap purchases of prosecution.[x]
Judge Hackett was said to preside over his courtroom “with an inflexible dignity that forbade any approach at familiarity.” He was also described as fearless in the face of many threats of personal violence against him, “and he never sat on the bench without having a fully-loaded seven-barreled revolver in this pocket.”[xi]
Judge Hackett died in December 1879 from the effects of a severe respiratory infection.
[i] History of the Bench and Bar of New York Vol. 1, New York History Co., 1897, at 340-41.
[ii] “John Hackett’s Death,” New York Times, Dec. 27, 1879.
[iii] The Recorder was one of the four judges of the Court of General Sessions, the New York City court of general jurisdiction in criminal cases. A coveted “political bone,” the position of Recorder, though primarily judicial, also encompassed service on varying municipal and charitable boards, including, after 1857, serving as a Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Board. See “The Recordership,” New York Times, Jan. 12, 1866.
[iv] New York Times, Dec. 27, 1879.
[v] Oliver E. Allen, The Tiger: The Rise and Fall of Tammany Hall, Addison-Wesley Pub. Co., 1993, at 98.
[vi] New York Times, Dec. 27, 1879.
[vii] Id.; The new Judiciary Article of the State Constitution, adopted in 1870, extended the term of office to 14 years to match the duration of the terms of office of Justices of the Supreme Court.
[viii] Id.
[ix] Id.
[x] “A Politician’s Punishment: Comments of Recorder Hackett in the McGrath Case,” New York Times, June 1, 1870.
[xi] Id.