County Clerk and Bronx County Sheriff
On January 1, 1920, Governor Smith appointed Moran county clerk of the Bronx to fill the unexpired term of Joseph Callahan who had been elected City Court Judge. Governor Smith appointed Moran with the undederstanding that Moran would become a candidate for a full term as County Clerk in the upcoming November election. Moran's supporters had been urging him to seek the democratic nomination to succeed the ailing Henry Bruckner as Bronx Borough President. When Moran offered himself for re-election to a full term as County Clerk, he was elected by a large majority and was re-elected again in November, 1924. It was during his tenure as Bronx County Clerk, that Moran married Ms. Eileen Kelly, the daughter of prominent Bronx Attorney Peter C. Kelly.
In 1929, Moran was elected sheriff of the Bronx, taking office on January 1, 1930. As sheriff, Moran gained notoriety for refusing to jail members of the National Guard who had been sentenced to serve short prison terms for failing to appear at drill. The jail’s lack of accommodations for non-criminal prisoners meant that guardsmen, some just 17 years old, would have to be confined with violent felons. Moran argued that “in time of peace and especially now, with distress and unemployment, the military law should not be enforced to extremes” and that no consideration had been given as to whether the boy prisoners were ill, had dependents or might lose their jobs. So strongly did Moran object, that the situation could only be resolved by the issuance of a writ of mandamus compelling him to act.
At one point, in April 1933, the Bronx jail held 17 prisoners all charged with First Degree Murder and all doomed to die in the electric chair. The most famous was Lottie Coll, the widow of gangland chief Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll who had been gunned down by a machine gun as he stood in an Eighth Avenue phonebooth.
Read more about this topic: Robert L. Moran (politician)
Famous quotes containing the words county, clerk, bronx and/or sheriff:
“But I would say to my fellows, once for all, As long as possible live free and uncommitted. It makes but little difference whether you are committed to a farm or the county jail.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Seynt Stevene was a clerk in Kyng Herowdes halle.
And servyd him of bred and cloth, as every kyng befalle.”
—Unknown. St. Stephen and King Herod (l. 1–2)
“who chained themselves to subways for the endless ride from Battery
to holy Bronx on benzedrine until the noise of wheels and children
brought them down shuddering mouth-wracked and battered bleak of brain and drained of brilliance in the drear light of Zoo,”
—Allen Ginsberg (b. 1926)
“The man’s an M.D., like you. He’s entitled to his opinion. Or do you want me to charge him with confusing a country doctor?”
—Robert M. Fresco. Jack Arnold. Sheriff Jack Andrews (Nestor Paiva)