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TI: How did Mr. Collins gain the trust of so many people? I mean, so many people went to him. How did he gain this trust?

TN: Well, to tell you the truth, when I came out of the camp, there was no attorney that would handle this case at all, Japanese American case. He was the only one. So after he filed a suit in San Francisco, then everybody trusted him. So that's how Japanese American people felt that he could be trusted. And that's how Mr. Toguri asked Mr. Collins to defend Iva Toguri's case.

TI: Because when people saw him take these cases and he started winning, then people started trusting.

TN: Yeah. Well, like Mr. Sasaki said, "Mr. Collins is, he's half crazy to take..." you know. [Laughs] But you need an attorney like that to fight the government. And the only reason why we were successful in San Francisco was because he did a lot of pro bono work for the U.S. district court. And attorneys never get paid, you know, for those pro bono work. Well, he did it for... he figured everybody had a right to an attorney. So he went to Alcatraz, he defended the Bundists and the Communists. [Laughs] So he had no qualm about that.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.