约翰·D·沃尔科

John Donaldson Voelker (June 29, 1903 – March 18, 1991), also known by his pen name Robert Traver, was a noted lawyer, author and fly fisherman from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Born and raised in Ishpeming, he later attended the University of Michigan Law School. His early professional career was as an attorney and county prosecutor in Marquette County. Voelker was also appointed to the Michigan Supreme Court by Governor G. Mennen Williams in 1957. He is best known as the author of the novel Anatomy of a Murder, published in 1958. The best-selling novel was turned into an Academy Award-nominated film of the same name—directed by Otto Preminger and starring James Stewart—released on July 1, 1959. Duke Ellington wrote the music for the movie. It is critically acclaimed as one of the best trial movies of all time.

Anatomy of a Murder is based on a real murder (and subsequent trial) that occurred in Big Bay in the early morning of July 31, 1952. Coleman A. Peterson, a lieutenant in the Army, was charged with murdering Maurice Chenoweth. The alleged motive was revenge for the rape of Peterson's wife by Chenoweth. Voelker successfully defended Peterson, who was found not guilty by reason of insanity. Other books by Voelker were based on other legal cases in the Upper Peninsula or his love of fly fishing for brook trout. He authored over 100 opinions during his short tenure on the Michigan Supreme Court, the most famous of which was in a case called People v. Hildabridle involving a naturist community near Battle Creek.

Early life and education

Voelker was born on June 29, 1903, in Ishpeming, Michigan, the youngest of six, to George and Annie (née Traver) Voelker. His father, of German ancestry, was a bar owner in Ishpeming. His grandparents were German immigrants who came to the mining towns of Ontonagon and Negaunee in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to establish breweries. George Voelker was born in Ontonagon in 1860 and learned to speak the Ojibwe language before English. Young John, alongside his older brothers, learned from his father to fly fish for brook trout. Annie Voelker was a music teacher who instilled in her son a love for the written word. Voelker spent most of his life in his hometown. His mother encouraged him to pursue his education; his father was content for Voelker to follow in his footsteps as a barkeeper. He attended the Northern Michigan Normal School (now Northern Michigan University) starting in 1922. He graduated with a teaching certificate in 1924, and then transferred to the University of Michigan Law School. While there, he met his future wife, Grace Taylor of Oak Park, Illinois. The faculty at the University of Michigan asked him to withdraw from the school in 1927, but he cited a regulation allowing him to be reexamined. He improved his grades enough to graduate from the school in 1928 and passed the Michigan bar exam later that year.

Legal career

After law school, Voelker returned home to work for the law firm of Eldredge & Eldredge in Marquette. He also worked as an assistant prosecuting attorney in Marquette County, Michigan. After two years apart from Grace, he moved to Chicago. After their marriage, he practiced law with the firm of Meyer, Austrian & Platt. They lived in Chicago for three years before he returned to Michigan. The few jobs Voelker got in a rural area in the middle of the Great Depression barely kept them solvent.

Soon after they moved, he entered the election for Marquette County Prosecuting Attorney in 1934. Voelker was the only local resident to campaign for the office, and when he was elected later that year, he was the first Democrat to hold the office since the American Civil War. He maintained a private law practice while serving as prosecutor and also served in other capacities. He was a member of the Marquette County Bar Association, serving as association president from 1939 to 1941. During the 1940s and 1950s, he served on several committees of the State Bar of Michigan, including the Committee on Judicial Selection and Tenure and the Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence. Voelker was a member of the State Board of Law Examiners from 1942 to 1945, and he was the city attorney for Ishpeming in 1943 and 1944. He also assisted the Michigan Attorney General in 1943 with a bribery investigation of the Michigan Legislature.

He was defeated for re-election in 1950. During the last ten years of his tenure, he lost only one felony case, judged a "very successful" record according to Judge Thomas Solka, a circuit court judge in Marquette County. Voelker noted of his defeat that it was inevitable. Ultimately, he said that a prosecutor in a small town will build a majority in the population to vote against him, but only after he had prosecuted them or their friends and relatives. Voelker also hated campaigning. Voelker once described the caseload from his tenure as prosecutor as involving "three grand larcenies, two auto thefts, three burglaries, a brace of bastard cases, one indecent exposure, one assault with intent to murder, two wife desertions and one dog-tired prosecutor".

After defeat, Voelker re-entered private practice. In August and September 1952, he represented the defense in People v. Coleman Peterson. Peterson was a veteran of both World War II and the Korean War who was stationed in Big Bay during the summer of 1952 and accused of murder in the shooting death of Maurice Chenoweth, a local bar owner. The case "made" his "reputation as a defense attorney". The defense centered on a rare form of the insanity defense called "irresistible impulse". Until the Peterson case, the "irresistible impulse" defense had not been used in Michigan since People v. Durfee in 1886. The trial lasted seven days with a total of 31 witnesses: 26 for the prosecution and five for the defense. The jury deliberated for four hours before pronouncing Peterson not guilty by reason of insanity. Voelker's only payment as the defense attorney was the murder weapon.