The Press: The Single-Minded Newsman

Monday, Nov. 24, 1952

On New York's World-Telegram and Sun, Edward J. Mowery, 46, is known as a "singleminded" reporter who never lets go of a story once he gets hold of it. Six years ago Mowery got hold of the case of Louis Hoffner, a dime-store clerk sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a New York City tavern owner in a holdup. Mowery heard about the case as the result of another good piece of reporting; he had just dug up evidence to help free Bertram M. Campbell, a Wall Street customer's man convicted of forgery as a result of mistaken identity (TIME, Aug. 6, 1945 et seq.). After Campbell was released, Reporter Mowery was flooded with letters from other prisoners asking help in getting them out too.

Only Hoffner's letter caught his interest: he not only insisted that he was innocent, but added that a patrolman and a former assistant district attorney believed him. When Mowery heard what the cop and prosecutor had found after five years of hunting for facts, he, too, became convinced that Hoffner's conviction was a miscarriage of justice, and he set to work to prove it.

The Search

First he tracked down members of the jury, found that they were so confused by the judge's charge that a majority first voted to free Hoffner, then reinterpreted the charge and voted to convict him. Mowery also found that a cab driver, who testified at the trial that he had seen Hoffner in Brooklyn eleven miles away at the time of the murder, had been threatened by detectives with losing his license. Another witness, who also saw Hoffner in Brooklyn, was never called to testify at all.

Mowery tried to get into Dannemora prison to see Hoffner himself, but prison officials, angered by Mowery's World-Telly stories, refused him. So Mowery got in by tagging along with the assistant D.A. and posing as his aide. Then prison officials cut off all mail between Mowery and Hoffner. Mowery got around the ban by inserting his questions in letters that others sent to Hoffner. Reporter Mowery wrote more than 60 stories about the case, formed a Hoffner Committee and collected thousands of signatures on a petition for a new trial. But he was still short one crucial piece of evidence.

The Clincher

Four months later he got it. Hoffner's conviction rested on the testimony of a waiter. He was the only one who had identified Hoffner as the killer. Mowery discovered that the first time the waiter tried to pick Hoffner out of the lineup, he failed. Pressed by defense lawyers to explain why he missed Hoffner the first time, the witness said he had not seen him in profile, as he had viewed the killer. But Mowery checked into the line-up record, proved that the witness had seen Hoffner's profile, and even so had not identified him at first.

After six years of having the state turn down all appeals, Mowery went again to the district attorney's office with the complete evidence. Last week, across the top of Page One in the World-Telegram and Sun, was a banner headline on Mowery's triumph: JUSTICE AFTER 12 LONG YEARS. HOFFNER LIFE TERM SET ASIDE. In setting aside the conviction, Judge Peter T. Farrell said: "Had the information [that we now have] been made known before, the course of justice might . . . have been completely different."