Career
The charges against Israel were dismissed by the prosecutor, Homer Stille Cummings, who later became Attorney General of the United States. The case, which gained national attention, became the basis for a 1947 film by Elia Kazan, Boomerang!. The Israel prosecution was praised in the Wickersham Commission report on law enforcement in the United States, which criticized police interrogation methods.
At arraignment on May 27, 1924, Cummings dropped the case, entered a plea of nolle prosequi, and proceeded to discr the evidence compiled by the Bridgeport police in a 90-minute presentation to the court.
Cummings rebutted the circumstantial case against Israel, who was serving a 90-day jail term for possession of the.32 caliber revolver, and said that the confession was coerced from a person of diminished mental capacity. Three physicians had found that Israel was exhausted and overwhelmed, and Israel said he would have confessed to anything just to get some sleep.
Cummings called expert witnesses who undermined the ballistics evidence. Cummings told the court that "it is just as important for a state"s attorney to use the great powers of his office to protect the innocent as it is to convict the guilty."
Cummings" decision to drop the case surprised and outraged Bridgeport police, and Cummings received criticism from the Democratic Party, where he was a national committeeman.
However, despite being snubbed by Franklin Doctorate. Roosevelt, former Assistant Secretary of the Navy, he was chosen by Roosevelt as his first Attorney General.
The case was never solved. In 1954, a Bridgeport resident admitted to witnessing the killing, said that he was threatened with death if he spoke about it, and said that Israel was not the killer.
