| Show FISHING indictments the other day chief justice sanford administered a fitting rebuke upon the thai had been pursued in the past in connection the prosecution of a certain class of in this territory he suggested that something was wrong when indictments were found on evidence that was insufficient to war rent a conviction and recommended in very vigorous language that the wron should cease we were pleased to bots nots that jude judd referred in his charge to alie grand jury em pan meled in this city to the same ho did not want that body now their labors to fishing indictments bir he expected to find indictments only on such evidence and such facts as would warrant the trial and conviction of the alleged offenders evidently both judges have become somewhat informed as to the scandalous conduct pursued by the courts juries and prosecuting officers ia previous years these two recently appointed judges evidently propose to conduct judicial proceedings here least a more humane principle As in the third district there have been instances of judicial persecution of the most outrageous character in this district there are on aba calendar today of the first district two or three eases of this description they have been carried over term after term against the protests of the defendants who on the opening of each term have demanded trials and been insultingly denied them by the representatives representative a of the government the graham case is a nota ble one there was not a single fact or scintilla of evidence to justify the grand jury 0 a year and a half ago that went through the farce of an investigation finding on indictment the prosecuting attorney influenced by ill concealed spite toward hiis victim was bent on holding him under bonds he caused mr graham to bo arrested and had him brought before a united states commissioner for examination mr grahams wife whose relationship as the legal wife was proven beyond a question was for two days held a prisoner in abo custody of a deputy marshal and than released only on her furnishing exorbitant or bonds which sha is still unda r the examination of a cloud of witnesses repealed reye aled i it one fact or a particle of evidence and when tho district attorney saw that the defendants discharge must inevitably follow he up stairs into the grand jury room and in less than half an hour doctored up an indictment against mr graham who in less than five minutes afterwards even while in attendance as a prisoner in tho commissioners court was arraigned in tho District Court und put under 1500 bonds although he at the same time was bield in similar bonds by the the animus of the whole proceeding bs understood when after the arraignment in the district court was compelled to admit he could not leold air t f graham because there was no evidence to warrant his doing so notwithstanding his urgent appeals mr graham has adver been able 10 get his case on trial to this day this was the style in which cormons mormons Mor mons especially objectionable to the prosecution were treated even as fr back as a year ago there is therefore some liepe of an improvement in judicial methods judging from tho re marks made on the bench by Chief justice sanford and judge judd |
