Note 960 — Chapter VII
Reading edition
William Pinkney was at this time probably the highest paid lawyer in America. Five years before he argued the case of Cohens vs. Virginia, his professional income was $21,000 annually (Story to White, Feb. 26, 1816, Story, i, 278), more than four times as much as Marshall ever received when leader of the Richmond bar (see vol. ii, 201, of this work). David B. Ogden, the other counsel for the Cohens, was one of the most prominent and successful lawyers of New York. See Warren, 303-04.
Another interesting fact in this celebrated case is that the Norfolk Court fined the Cohens the minimum allowed by the Virginia statute. They could have been fined at least $800, $100 for each offense—perhaps should have been fined that amount had the law been strictly observed. Indeed, the Virginia Act permitted a fine to the extent of "the whole sum of money proposed to be raised by such lottery." (6 Wheaton, 268.)