Hayden C. Covington

[The Librarian]

Attorney for the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society who played a major role in legal victories such as:
West Virginia State Board of Education vs. Barnette (1940)




They Oppose Freedom of Worship - 1953 "New World" Assembly at Yankee Stadium

Defending and Legally Establishing the Good News (1950)

Dorothy Covington, Wife of Civil Liberties Attorney Hayden Covington, Dies at 92 




Interesting comment on a related post:

Comments from an author on Hayden Covington below:

Ali did not serve even five minutes of time in prison and that had zero to do with Hayden C. Covington.

June 19, 1967 in Houston, Tex.

There are a number of salient facts concerning this man who possessed a BIG REPUTATION.

1. Covington and Rutherford were pretty much the Type A personalities who got along famously. In fact, Rutherford wanted Covington to be the next GB executive of the Watchtower corporation.
2. Fred Franz and Nathan Knorr were the polar opposites to the (above) dynamic duo. These two would conspire to drive Covington out. Knorr hated Covington. Knorr was anti-intellectual and Covington disdained his lack of education.
3. Both Rutherford and Covington were hard drinkers. Eventually, the drinking and bullying of Knorr would get Covington sideways with Franz and Knorr and the excuse would be given that Covington would "step down" from the Vice-President position because he wasn't of the heavenly class. This is bullshit for an obvious reason: he never claimed to be anointed in the first place, and this was never an obstacle before.
4. Having an 80%win record with the Supreme Court, Covington was sought out by wealthy Jehovah's Witness families to represent their sons who had refused Alternate Service before the courts. For a retainer of $10,000 dollars, Covington would agree.

A friend of mine who ended up in the same Federal Prison told me Covington botched his trial and cut short his presentation. Why? During his trial, Covington was offered a quarter of a million dollars if he could get Cassius Clay / Muhammed Ali out of his Draft refusal case.


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Here is the B.S. public relations spin on Covington:
"Declaring the Good News Without Letup (1942-1975)", Jehovah's Witnesses - Proclaimers of God's Kingdom, page 91, "In September 1945, Brother Covington graciously declined to serve further as vice president of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society (of Pennsylvania), explaining that he wished to comply with what was then understood to be Jehovah's will for all members of the directorate and officers—that they be spirit-anointed Christians, whereas he professed to be one of the 'other sheep.'"
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5. Covington racked up 37 Supreme Court victories representing the Watchtower's interests. This gave him tremendous clout.
6. Covington had replaced Olin Moyle, who had had a huge confrontation and blow up with Rutherford. (Moyle sued Rutherford and won, but his monetary settlement was stretched out over many decades spitefully by the Society.)

During and after the trial, Covington made ridiculous statements to the press such as this:
"I take exception to remarks that this man is under the influence of the Muslims in any way."
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Lawyer Hayden Covington took the lazy way out and suggested Ali should accept a guilty sentence and seek to make a deal with the prosecutor, Morton Susman, United States Attorney. In fact, he talked Ali into requesting that the Judge sentence him immediately!
It was this tactic which frustrated and upset Ali's first-hired attorney, Quinnan A. Hodges of Houston. It is also the reason Ali's handlers refused to pay Covington. 

(Attorney M.W. Plummer andAttorney Chauncey Eskridge are the real 'heroes' of the Ali story).
But first:

How was Covington's plan supposed to work?
Federal District Judge Joe E. Ingraham sentenced Clay to five years in prison and fined him $10,000. This was the maximum penalty for the offense, which is a felony.
The judge's sentence was pronounced immediately at Clay's request.
"I'd appreciate it," the 25-year-old boxer said, "if the court will do it now, give me my sentence now, instead of waiting and stalling for time."
Prosecutor Morton Susman and Hayden Covington had worked out a deal, but IT WAS NOT BINDING on the Judge!
New York Time news article: "Both Mr. Covington and Mr. Hodges asked Judge Ingraham to put Clay on probation. Failing that, said Mr. Covington, the former champion should not be given a sentence more severe than those given in similar cases. "That's 18 months," he said."

https://books.google.com/books?id=K7gDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA51&lpg=PA51&dq=Quinnan+A.+Hodges+and+muhammad+ali&source=bl&ots=ycWXV3cKtq&sig=skAogRLT8Ei4i4Q1YDBrD6o2SPM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CD8Q6AEwBWoVChMI9YGxmZSDyAIVjhOSCh1CWQvF#v=onepage&q=Quinnan%20A.%20Hodges%20and%20muhammad%20ali&f=false

How then, did Muhammed Ali avoid serving a moment of incarceration?
The appeals process allowed his competent attorney's M.W. Plummer and Attorney Chauncey Eskridge

to pursue the real problem in the case:

1. Ali's Draft Board didn't consider him to be sincere as a real minister
2. Ali failed the Army's intelligence test and did not qualify to serve

The Supreme Court in Clay v. United States reversed his conviction in 1971. (Ali’s birth name was Cassius Clay.) “[T]he Department [of Justice] was simply wrong as a matter of law in advising that the petitioner’s beliefs were not religiously based and were not sincerely held,” the opinion said. Even though Ali prevailed 8-0 before the high court, Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong later reported in The Brethren that the justices initially voted against him, finding that he wasn’t really a conscientious objector and that he should go to jail. Apparently, one of Justice John Marshall Harlan’s law clerks loaned the justice a copy of The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Harlan read the book and changed his views on Black Muslims.
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Bottom line of all of this:
There was bad blood between Knorr and Covington, but Hayden C. Covington was a legend. The
Watchtowr Organization NEEDED HIM for publicity purposes. He was reinstated before his death.
My encounters with the Draft Board and my subsequent trial and imprisonment took place in October of 1967, after Cassius Clay / Muhammed Ali had his highly publicized clash with authorities.
I cover this in some detail in my book I WEPT BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON (A Prisoner of Conscience in a Time of War.)

 

[The Librarian]

Memorial Talk by Colin Quackenbush

Quackenbush Colin - Hayden C. Covington Memorial.mp3

Funeral Discourse for Hayden C. Covington, given in November, 1978.

Covington had been Vice President of the Watchtower Society from 1942-1945 and had served as Chief Legal Counsel for Jehovah's Witnesses from 1939-1963. Covington represented Jehovah's Witnesses before the U.S. Supreme Court on several important cases involving personal freedoms. Funeral discourse was given by Colin Quackenbush from Watchtower headquarters in New York.

He died Nov 21, 1978 

[Joan Kennedy]

I met Br. Covington when he came out to Seattle in 1958  to argue a brother’s draft case before the federal court.  My husband had been fighting his draft case since the early fifties, and he expected a trial soon. Since my husband and the brother being represented by Br Covington had the same local attorney, I was introduced to Br Covington. He was very kind and encouraging to me, and I will always remember that encounter. He later wrote my husband, giving him advice on how to proceed with his expected trial. As it turned out, the brother lost his case and was sentenced to McNeil penitentiary, while the Justice Department later decided they wouldn’t win my husband’s case.  The local draft board didn’t give up, and he fought the draft until 1967 during the Vietnam war.  

 I’ve often wondered how our younger brothers here would have  handled the intense pressure by the authorities and incarceration if the draft had continued to this date.