[4] In 1915, Manton was attorney for Charles Becker, the New York City police officer who was convicted and executed in the Rosenthal murder trial.

Manton was also involved in a series of controversial decisions concerning control and financing of the companies then operating the New York City Subway.

[4] Manton suffered severe financial reverses during the Great Depression and began to accept gifts and loans from persons having business before his court, some of which allegedly constituted outright bribes for selling his vote in pending patent litigation.

[4] Rumors of corruption spread and in 1939, Manton resigned under pressure of investigations by Manhattan District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey, who wrote a letter to the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee recommending impeachment proceedings by a federal grand jury.

Judge William Calvin Chesnut of the District of Maryland presided over the jury trial at which Manton called former Democratic Presidential candidates Alfred Smith and John W. Davis as character witnesses.

[1] Manton's conviction was affirmed by a specially constituted Second Circuit panel consisting of retired Supreme Court Justice George Sutherland, Supreme Court Justice Harlan Fiske Stone, and newly appointed Second Circuit Judge Charles Edward Clark.