| Show THE IDAHO conspiracy CASES DISMISSED ON thursday last the 3rd ard inet the noted election conspiracy cases came up for trial at malad idaho fifty two men were included in the same indictment whick which charged ahem with conspiring to vote unlawfully the defendants bad tendered their resignations as members of the mormon Church under the belief that by so resigning they could lawfully take the registration oath and vote to the credit of the prosecuting officer D W standrod stand rod esq it may be stated that he manifested no ill will towards the defendants nor any desire to secure the infliction of a severe penalty upon them ile hig willingness to recommend the court to inflict only a light fine upon each of them which it was wap tacitly understood should be 25 on cond that the defendants should plead guilty as charged in the indictment the latter appreciated the leniency of the proposal and so BO far as the pecuniary feature of it was concerned would gladly have acceded to it but in being arraigned they had entered a plea of not guilty and they were unwilling to change it to one of bf guilty while the decision of the supreme court of the united states affirmed the proposition that th these men had committed a technical offense they felt that they had acted conscientiously and were unwilling to make a record which might be construed as a confession that they had bad done otherwise the prosecution then proposed that if three of the defendants would come into court ande and change bange their pleas ones fines would be assessed upon those three heavy enough to cover all the rest at 26 25 each and the indictment as against all the other defendants would be dismissed As asa a metter matter resting among themselves each of oft them heiri would pay his hilt share but this was objected to as having practically the same effect that compliance with the former proposition would have haj baj while it is somewhat unusual for a 9 prosecuting officer to enter into such negotiations negotiation as these with parties under indictment nothing illegal was suggested in the present ln instance stane the fact may as well he be understood that the court and prosecution were in a lexious dil df lemma enma on the one hand heavy expenses had been incurred by the county and the prosecuting officer felt it his duty to secure at least in part a reimbursement on the other hand he had a right to take official notice of the fact that the defendants were good citizens it lu the best sense of the ta term tarm rm whose crime was only an error of judgment and not an act involving moral turpitude pitt rde the court bad a right to take judicial notice of the same fact and in reality did sophese so These circumstances explain in part the reasons for negotiations which faultfinders fault finders might perhaps criticism criticise critic ise as irregular but which were entirely within the law the more serious ef dilemma in which the courland cour court and tand prosecuting attorney found the themselves 2 will be explained further on I 1 As the ache defendants objected to having any of their number plead guilty it was determined to go to trial with the case of one of them twenty four jurors were in attendance an attempt was made to select from this number a trial jury but challenges for can cause be were offered and sustained in rapid slon sion and son B on thirteen en of the twenty four were excused the work of im paneling a jury had bad to be suspended d aud ami a venire for twenty four il ou r jurors was placed in the hands of the and made returnable two days later it was wa obviously improbable that qualified jurors could he be found without going to remote portions of the county as the cases were so notorious hence the there were fifty two defendants they could not all be tried together and a juror who had sat bat on the case of one would thereby be disqualified to sit on that of another again so large a proportion of the inhabitants of thai tha section had fixed opinions respecting the guilt of the accused that it was hard to get any jurors at all it thus became fully apparent that it would be a physical impossibility to procure jurors enough within the jurisdiction n of the court to try more than a portion and probably a small portion of the defendants and of course it wound be gross discrimination alon to try and punish a few of them and let the rest go scot free the perplexed situation which confronted y the court and prosecuting attorney will thus be understood the ventre venire above spoken of was placed in the hands of the sheriff on thursday afternoon after this had bad been done and when the full nature of the situation had become plainly apparent to the prosecuting officer he saw that only one thing remained for him t to do move to dismiss all the cases he went before the court and made this motion tio n which was granted in making the order judge barfty berry barry aty gave the prosecutor credit for having done his duty and further expressed the opinion that the result reached was all things considered perfectly satisfactory he di distinctly stated that he himself would think no worse of the defend defendants anta on accod account nt of their havi having ng been accused of a crime and he believed that no one else would the bondsmen bondsman of all of the defendants were exonerated and thus has ended in a manner which is quite agreeable all round this much vexed business we are confident that even the most strongly partisan anti amor mor conall mons of idaho will be unable to raise any sensible or logical ob objection to the proceedings which terminated r in this result neither mr standrod stand rod nor judge berry can possibly be act accused used of any ant pro proclivities each has made a record rela ive to the mormon question which effectually protects him from all such charges charees while we are will ing to give each all the credit he deserves for a sensible mode of dispo disposing Aing of these celebrated conspiracy cases the facts and which confronted the court as we understand them would have made it I 1 impossible to properly try convict and punish the defendants |
