What Happened to Mickey?. Peter McSherry
was represented by Frank Regan, the professional thief’s deeply-committed friend. Mr. Regan was an advocate who believed, to the core of his being, that every person — a penniless, recidivist criminal, no matter — was entitled to a fair hearing. A lawyer of not inconsiderable ability, Regan resided for years in lawyerly penury at the Royal Cecil Hotel — Toronto’s notorious “Bucket of Blood” — on the northwest corner of The Corner.[5] A lifelong bachelor and a devout Roman Catholic, he literally chose to live among the kind he represented — and he often did not get paid. In July 1933, he put in 17 days for Mickey McDonald at his Kingston trial for riotous destruction of property and, as he later said, never saw a penny for his work or his expenses. Jack Shea, in September 1934, at the end of his trial for shopbreaking, made a flowery speech wherein he eschewed crime forever and gratefully thanked “Mr. Regan” for defending him for nothing. By late 1938, Regan was telling the likes of Mickey and Johnny “The Bug” Brown that he wanted money “up front,” or he would not be there. But he was always there, because in his quirky mind the judicial process was so badly stacked against his kind of client that, as Mickey had boldly shouted out at his arraignment, “There is no justice! We can’t get justice here!”[6]
In law and order circles, Frank Regan was the perceived author of the Albert Dorland Affair, one of the worst scandals in Toronto Police history — a scandal that ended the career of Inspector of Detectives Alex J. Murray. In the minds of some, the accusation “frame-up” hung over Regan like a dead baby, his famous advocacy of the cause of Dorland being what friends and foes alike saw as his defining effort. The issue was whether or not Dorland had been entrapped by a police informer into an armed robbery so that he could be, and was, shipped off to Kingston for 5 years. Armed with an affidavit signed by William Toohey, Dorland’s former partner-in-crime and the alleged police agent, Regan remade Dorland, a gunman and career criminal, into “Canada’s most famous wronged man.”[7] A subsequent judicial inquiry saw the Toronto Police made out to be untruthful — “liars,” in Gwyn Thomas’s phrase — after which, if not before, the police and much of the judiciary saw Regan as an outright cop-hating “troublemaker.”
Moreover, judges disliked Mr. Regan’s courtroom style, a lengthening element to any court proceeding he was involved in. He would expend enormous amounts of a court’s time, often in order to score niggling points of minor significance. Left alone, he would go back over the same ground again and again. In cross-examination, instead of asking questions of witnesses, he often gave lengthy speeches with a question at the end — in effect, giving evidence himself. He was forever jumping to his feet in court with yet another unlooked-for objection or motion. At times, he would phrase questions in an outrageous manner, or he would roar at witnesses as a form of emphasis, or he would too aggressively accuse witnesses of despicable motives, or of making things up, or of having poor morals. At times, he would create, or try to create, issues that were outside the scope of the matter at hand. Yet, a contemporary estimate of Frank Regan in a courtroom gave him credit for “an enormous capacity for assimilation of detail, a marvellous memory, as well as dogged persistence, and an utter indifference to the attitude of those about him.”[8] All of this was fair enough, but none of it helped to actuate the process or did anything to endear Mickey’s legal representative to the judges and magistrates before whom he appeared.
Alex MacDonald’s attorney was much less painful. Isadore Levinter was a prominent civil litigator whose only career foray into criminal law would be his defence of Alex for murder. Possessed of a sharp mind and a good knowledge of the law, Mr. Levinter’s involvement had come as a result of a friend’s recommendation of a “nice young man” who, as the proprietor of Pop’s Lunch, delivered food to his Parkdale business.
Three of the four days of the preliminary, seated in the same seats each day, were four of the brothers’ main supporters: Mickey’s attractive and unfailingly well-turned-out wife, Margaret; Florence MacDonald, pretty, dark-eyed, sixteen-year-old sister of the brothers, who, like Kitty, usually wore a fur jacket in court; Brigadier Elias Owen of the Salvation Army; and, if anyone would believe it, Marjorie Constable, described in the press as “a friend of the family.” Alexander MacDonald Sr., who was needed at his work, was in court some days and not others. Kitty was most often noticed by The Daily Star, which, on March 10, typically reported, “Her smart ensemble, pert hat and blonde hair, made her the target of all eyes.”
“Call John R. Shea,” the court crier cried.
A kind of faint smile played on Mickey’s mouth as his former friend and associate-in-crime, whom the press termed “a surprise witness,” was sworn. Neither Mickey or Alex would make any complaint or sound while Shea’s story unfolded over two hours or more.
Shea gave his evidence, in response to the questions of York County Crown Attorney James McFadden. He told of his criminal past, of his being charged with the Port Credit bank robbery, and of Mickey’s going with him to rent the Ossington Avenue apartment on December 30. He said that the next evening, New Year’s Eve, 1938, Mickey brought two revolvers — a .45 - and a .38-calibre — to be stored in his dining-room buffet for use in a previously-discussed bank robbery at Ottawa. He told of Mickey drunkenly loading both of the guns in his front room on the afternoon of Tuesday, January 3, in the sight of Leo Gauthier, Joe Smith, and himself, and of the concern this caused among those who were there, Gauthier in particular. Which, as Shea related, meant nothing to Mickey, who persisted in loading the revolvers anyway. He also described the futile trip to Ottawa to rob a bank that began late that same night.[9]
Then Shea’s testimony got to the evening of James Windsor’s murder. He said that, about 6 p.m. on the night of Saturday, January 7, the two MacDonalds unexpectedly arrived at 209A Ossington with a very drunk Cecil Clancy and, soon after, Mickey and Alex — both armed — went out “to do a job,” leaving the little bookie behind at the apartment. The courtroom hushed when Shea got to Mickey’s 8 p.m. return and his alleged immediate confession coming in the door: “I have just killed a man,” which was the start of an alleged dispute with Alex, who thought Mickey had only shot “the mark” in the leg. Shea testified that he asked Mickey why he shot the man. Mickey’s reply, Shea said, was, “I had to do it. He got tough with me and I had to let him have it.”[10]
In the prisoner’s box, it was then that a little smile came back on Mickey’s mouth, but he said nothing.
Cross-examining Shea, Frank Regan asked, “Is it true you have made a deal with the police in reference to the sentence you may get on a Port Credit robbery?”
Shea’s answer was “No.”
“So you are coming out as a noble citizen to tell what you know. Will you be tried on the Port Credit charge?” asked Regan in a voice that was laden with sarcasm.
“Absolutely,” Shea replied with seeming sincerity.[11]
Four other witnesses, including Cecil Clancy, whose evidence was meant as corroboration of the most important part of Shea’s story, testified that day, but the headlines were all about Jack Shea’s testimony and especially Mickey’s alleged confession of guilt. The Daily Star and the Evening Telegram wore Page One streamers directly quoting Mickey’s supposed admission. As pictured in the Star, “Shea was well-dressed and when he spoke he did so with emphasis. His cheeks quivered and his face turned red when he mentioned the return of the MacDonald brothers to his apartment.”[12]
The hearing continued during the first three days of the following week. These were the same days that the world found out with certainty that the word of Adolph Hitler was worth nothing. The fascist dictator, who had guaranteed the borders of the remnant of Czechoslovakia that was not ceded to Germany by the Munich Agreement of September 29, 1938, grabbed again — taking for Nazi Germany the remainder of the Czech nation, the limits of which he had sworn at Munich to respect forever. Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement was, during these few days, shown to be the weak-kneed fraud that it was. The war that had been looming at least since March 1936, when Hitler’s Germany re-occupied the demilitarized Rhineland, seemed by the end of the MacDonalds’ preliminary hearing to be inevitable. Hitler was already talking about helping himself to a chunk of Poland, the so-called Danzig Corridor to the Baltic Sea, which separated Germany from German-administered East Prussia.
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