Matthew Brady (lawyer)

Matthew Brady
Brady in 1925
20th District Attorney of San Francisco
In office
January 8, 1920 – January 8, 1944
Preceded byCharles Fickert
Succeeded byPat Brown
Personal details
Born(1876-04-01)April 1, 1876
San Francisco, California, U.S.
DiedAugust 5, 1952(1952-08-05) (aged 76)
San Francisco, California, U.S.
Resting placeHoly Cross Cemetery (Colma, California)
Political partyDemocratic
Spouse
Irene Brady
​
(m. 1946)​
Alma materHasting's School of Law
ProfessionLawyer

Matthew A. Brady (April 1, 1876 – August 5, 1952) was an American lawyer. He was the district attorney of San Francisco from 1920 to 1943.

Brady defeated previous district attorney Charles Fickert, who was responsible for the conviction of Tom Mooney and Warren Billings in the Preparedness Day bombing. By 1926, he was convinced that Mooney and Billings were unjustly convicted. In a letter to Governor Friend W. Richardson, Brady wrote "If these matters that have developed during the trials could be called to the attention of a court that had jurisdiction to grant a new trial, undoubtedly a new trial would be granted. Furthermore, if a new trial were granted, there would be no possibility of convicting Mooney or Billings." In 1935, he empaneled a grand jury and hired private investigator Edwin Atherton to report on police corruption in the San Francisco Police Department.

Brady presided over numerous high-profile cases in the 1920s and 1930s, including the three Fatty Arbuckle murder trials, and the arrest and roundup of Communists.

In 1936, Brady was D.A. during the infamous sterilization plot charged by Ann Cooper Hewitt, 21-year-old heiress, and daughter of Peter Cooper Hewitt, against her mother, Marion Jeanne Andrews, accused of sterilizing her daughter, Ann, to thwart an inheritance dependent on the young woman having children, in a climate of California Eugenics law, and aided by Dr. Tilton E Tillman and Samuel G. Boyd.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]

He was defeated for reelection by Pat Brown in 1943, which was the second time the two had competed for the office.

  1. ^ "Beloved Jurist Dies in Sleep; Served Public 44 Years". The San Francisco Examiner. San Francisco. 6 August 1952. Retrieved 5 March 2024.
  2. ^ "California Eugenics". www.uvm.edu. Retrieved 19 October 2018.
  3. ^ Currell, Susan, and Christina Cogdell. 2006. Popular Eugenics. Athens: Ohio University Press.
  4. ^ "The sordid story of the once-popular eugenics movement". Washington Post. Retrieved 19 October 2018.
  5. ^ Romeo Vitelli. "Sterilizing The Heiress". Providentia. Retrieved 19 October 2018.
  6. ^ Wendy, Kline. "A new deal for the child: Ann Cooper Hewitt and sterilization in the 1930s". repository.library.georgetown.edu. Retrieved 19 October 2018.
  7. ^ "EUGENICS IN CALIFORNIA, 1896-1945 by Joseph W. Sokolik". txstate.edu. Retrieved 19 October 2018.
  8. ^ Kline, Wendy (21 November 2005). Building a Better Race: Gender, Sexuality, and Eugenics from the Turn of the Century to the Baby Boom. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520246744. Retrieved 19 October 2018 – via Google Books.
  9. ^ "History". University of Cincinnati. Retrieved 19 October 2018.
  10. ^ Payne, G.S. (April 2010). "The Curious Case of Ann Cooper Hewitt" (PDF). History Magazine.
  11. ^ Currell, Susan; Cogdell, Christina (19 October 2018). Popular Eugenics: National Efficiency and American Mass Culture in the 1930s. Ohio University Press. ISBN 9780821416914. Retrieved 19 October 2018 – via Google Books.
  12. ^ "Kirsten Spicer. "A Nation of Imbeciles": The Human Betterment Foundation's Propaganda for Eugenics Practices in California. Chapman University". chapman.edu. Retrieved 19 October 2018.
  13. ^ "American Experience The Eugenics Crusade Premieres Tuesday, October 16 on PBS A Cautionary Tale About the Quest for Human Perfection". Archived from the original on 2018-10-19. Retrieved 2020-03-29.