Remembering Bill Wines

If he had lived a few more years, William C. Wines would surely have been an early member of the Appellate Lawyers Association of Illinois (founded in 1968).

Bill was born and raised in Springfield, Illinois. He studied prelaw at the University of Illinois.* Graduating from Northwestern University School of Law in 1932, he began his legal career that year as an associate at the Chicago firm Chapman and Cutler. Two years later, he was a partner in Green, Costigan and Wines.

His father, William St. John Wines, was a prominent Springfield lawyer; his maternal grandfather was a circuit judge. According to newspaper articles, his ambition to follow his father into the legal profession began at age 7.

He debated in high school, college, and even during law school. He reportedly entered one contest at the last minute and won, defeating the other contestants who had been preparing for days or weeks.

He was said to be fluent in French, Spanish, and Italian. An article reported that he was a member of a winning debate team that competed in Spanish and defeated a Cuban team.

Bill became an assistant Illinois attorney general in 1941 and served as head of the AG’s appeals division from some time in the 1940s until February 1964. He represented the State of Illinois and its officers and agencies in hundreds of appeals before state and federal reviewing courts. Articles also describe his arguments in trial courts on legal issues.

The cases he briefed and argued before the United States Supreme Court include Bartkus v. Illinois, 359 U.S. 121 (1959) (a defendant’s acquittal in his federal criminal trial did not bar his prosecution for the same crime in state court); MacDougall v. Green, 335 U.S. 281 (1945) (election requirements); Colegrove v. Green, 328 U.S. 549 (1946) (validity of Illinois congressional districts); Illinois v. Michigan, 360 U.S. 712 (1959) (a massive original-jurisdiction dispute among several Great Lakes states over lake water diversion and sanitary district management); Woods v. Nierstheimer, 328 U.S. 211 (1946) (habeas corpus was not the proper remedy); Ciucci v. Illinois, 356 U.S. 571 (1958) (successive trials for multiple murders committed at the same place and time are permissible); Carter v. Illinois, 329 U.S. 173 (1946) (assistance of counsel); Snowden v. Hughes, 321 U.S. 1 (1944) (election issue); Morey v. Doud, 354 U.S. 457 (1957) (validity of a provision of the community currency exchange act); and Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S. 264 (1959) (perjured testimony). There are more. In hundreds of other cases, the Supreme Court either denied certiorari or dismissed the appeal, but he would have briefed or opposed the petition.

He was counsel of record — most often, lead counsel — in hundreds of Illinois Supreme Court cases and in dozens of cases before nine of the eleven U.S. Courts of Appeals.

He also handled appeals for private clients, presumably when he was not an assistant attorney general. Articles suggest that he lectured in what we now call CLE courses.

Bill was an appellate lawyer in the 1940s and ‘50s, and until 1964, when a position like his was probably one of only a handful of ways one could specialize in that area.

Clearly, he was a great one. A Chicago Tribune article on his death states: “He was described as a ‘legal genius’ by several of his associates and attorneys who opposed him in court.” Other articles confirm this assessment.

********************************************************************************************************* Bill was also renowned for his sideline, writing the TV series They Stand Accused. A Chicago Tribune article (June 8, 1952) described his “crack Sunday night courtroom series now in its fifth year on television.” Here are excerpts from that article:

     It is amazing enough that Wines has already produced more than 200 dramas. None are adaptations of actual cases. They’re all fiction. “They’re not true, but true to life,” Wines says. This prodigious output would constitute a career for the average man. But it’s only a well-paying hobby for the 43-year-old Chicago attorney. Wines is an assistant state’s [sic] attorney general who has argued 25 cases before the United States Supreme Court and lost only one. He has appeared before the Illinois Supreme Court more than 200 times.

     They Stand Accused is by far the most realistic courtroom drama on television. Defense and prosecution are conducted by practicing Chicago attorneys with a little ham in them. Their courtroom haggling and legal skirmishes are real in the sense that there is no script. The attorneys as well as the actors absorb the story line written by Wines, then ad lib the show.

     Authenticity is a fetish with the show’s producer, Jay Faraghan, who also acts as host, and Richard von Albrecht, associate producer. Roles of tough cops  have been played by some of the city’s finest. Medical testimony comes from real doctors and preachers have served as character witnesses.

     When a drama called for a strip teaser, the show recruited Dardy Orlando, a professional ecdysiast and wife of Harold Minsky, the burlesque impresario. Her performance, though restricted to testimony, was memorable.

     The realism Wines weaves into the dramas constantly catches viewers off guard and sometimes the performers as well. There was a lawyer, for example, who was so carried away by the TV drama he was participating in, he at one point leaped to his feet and requested a change of venue!

     A Superior court judge was recruited to play the TV judge for a while. A cub newspaper woman, recognizing him as one of the judges on her county building beat, frantically called Wines to ask him where the “trial” was being held.

     One story involved a French orphan who had fallen in love with a GI during the war. She came to America, learned her sweetheart had jilted her for another, and was now broke. After the telecast, a [woman] viewer called offering to adopt the comely “French orphan” ***.

     Claire Baum, a professional actor, portrayed a nuclear physicist accused of murder. The jury found him guilty and the judge “sentenced” him to death, Wines recalled. Four months later Baum played a psychiatrist in another edition of They Stand Accused. An aroused viewer wrote a scorching letter objecting to the freeing of a convicted murderer. “He should have been executed long ago.”

     Producers receive numerous fan letters protesting bitterly against acquittals or convictions, although they have no control over verdicts. The jury is selected from the audience. It differs from a real jury in only one point — because of TV time limitations, a majority instead of a unanimous ballot suffices.

     While Wines’ prolific and adept pen astounds other practitioners in the trade, he does not impress himself particularly.

     “I will run out of ideas when men and women run out of new ways of making fools of themselves at which time I will not only go off TV but stop practicing law as well.”

         [text omitted]

     Wines is trying to dramatize how the problems of ordinary people in extraordinary situations are actually handled in a courtroom. And naturally he appreciates the $450 he receives for a story when the series is sponsored on the network.

     “My writing is really the stuff of my life,” Bill said. “The TV writers I respect are the boys who do the mysteries. I don’t see how they can come up with something so clever and unrealistic week after week. That takes talent. It’s much easier for me because I personally know a number of murderers, dope fiends, and bank robbers.”

     And as an afterthought, with a pixie grin on his face, William C. Wines added: “And some TV executives.”

********************************************************************************************************* They Stand Accused was a major hit. It began broadcasting on WGN-TV in April 1948. In 1949, it was fed to the CBS network under the title “Cross Question.” In January 1950, when WGN became an affiliate, the show moved to the DuMont network and reverted to its original title, They Stand Accused. Its run ended on December 30, 1954.

********************************************************************************************************* Tragically, Bill died in his office at 160 North LaSalle Street in Chicago on the morning of February 21, 1964. He was 54. Many described his death as a major loss to the legal profession. We can imagine it was also a loss for the soon-to-be-formed ALA.

********************************************************************************************************TThe line-drawing portrait at the beginning of this article was generated by AI from a photo copied from a Chicago Tribune article. Although it’s not original, I think it’s a good likeness.

*********************************************************************************************************Fredda Longfield Wines, Bill’s wife, was an accomplished violinist. One article said she had “been on national concert tour and guest artist with symphonies and well-known radio presentations.” “Her concerts have received high praise from critics.” Illinois State Register, Nov. 9, 1941, p. 23. She reportedly began playing in church and school at age 5. According to one article, she “debuted” at 9, and owned “one of the rarest of the old master violins in the world . . . made in Cremona, Italy, in 1572, by Andrea Amati, founder of the Cremona school of violin making and designer of the present form of the violin.” Columbia Daily Tribune, Oct. 30, 1929, p. 1. She graduated from the Kansas City-Horner Conservatory in 1930 and from the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, where she studied under Mischa Mischakoff, an outstanding Ukrainian-American violinist and one of the most famous concertmasters in the United States, who was then concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Fredda reportedly also won a scholarship to the Juilliard School of Music. Articles report many of her public performances.

Fredda and Bill married in Springfield on November 15, 1941, after years of courtship. He was 32; she was 30. She outlived him by 27 years. They are buried side by side at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield.

* Bill attended the University of Illinois, but I can’t determine whether he earned a U. of I. degree. At that time, it was possible to enter Northwestern University School of Law after only three years of undergrad study. He would have been 23 when he graduated from law school (he was born in April 1909), so it’s unlikely he completed a bachelor's degree.