NCJ Number
123359
Date Published
1987
Length
248 pages
Annotation
This narrative describes the people and events surrounding the 1945 assassination of Michigan State Senator Warren Hooper, who was scheduled to testify in a probe into legislative corruption in Michigan.
Abstract
Hooper had admitted taking bribes, but he was murdered before he could tell who was behind the pay-off schemes involved in the scandal. The grand jury investigation followed two decades of rumors about lawmakers who had accepted money and gifts in return for votes to benefit a variety of industries. The investigation began in 1943 and lasted for 6 years. It resulted in 62 convictions, including those of a former lieutenant governor; 12 State senators; 11 State representatives; and many prosecuting attorneys, police officials, and lobbyists. Eleven cases were dismissed, 9 brought acquittals, 3 ended with hung juries, and others never came to trial. The investigation required 5,780 working hours of a State police task force, and nearly 1,300 subpoenas were issued. The narrative uses information from published accounts, private correspondence, personal interviews, trial transcripts, and sworn statements made before the police or the grand jury. Photographs and chapter notes.