| Show GEORGE Q eamon CANNON EDITOR AND PUBLISHER wednesday october 23 1571 1871 THE TEE verdict in the hawkins case is now mow public property with the merits or demerits of the quarrel between husband and wife wie we have nothing to do As is generally the case in bad family quarrels there may be faults on both sides but that is no concern of the publics it is a private matter and like ike all such matters the less it is meddled with by those who have no proper business with it the better but the proceedings ce of the trial are public and the public is interested in it hence we make a few remarks the defendant was charged with adultery under a territorial statute and the verdict was rendered accordingly the verdict was eminently an unrighteous one it was not in accordance with the letter of the law as understood by b the he legislature which made the law ayd and n by the t 0 for whom it was made it was a verdict rendered not in accordance with the interpretation of the law received by those to whom the law applies but in accordance with the interpretation if received at all received by communities at a dis tance and to whom it has no application it was a verdict rendered by a jury that does not represent the community but one generally believed to be chosen with the special view of securing turin verdicts of guilty in a certain class of cases all these things are perfectly well known to the judge the jury all the officers of the court and every person of ordinary intelligence in the territory hence wo we maintain that mr hawkins was waa not tried by a jury of his peers but by a jury of his enemies and that really the verdict was in accordance neither with the spirit the intent nor the letter of the law therefore in our opinion the trial was a farce the verdict an inaus tice a dangerous precedent and a disgrace to american jurisprudence and the whole proceedings aside from the defence we believe were only a portion of a prearranged pre arranged plan for the purpose of olf producing a certain political effect some bome people may but we do not consider that it is a good policy to make courts simply courts of law and not courts of justice in any sense of the word and that law twisted and wrested to an interpretation entirely foreign to that understood and received and acted upon by the whole community by and for whom it was enacted we must enter enten our protest against any such ruoc mockery kery of justice as it manifestly U is eo so long as the power and privilege of of protest are left to us ir geo L MILLER editor of the omaha is one ond of the few hon orabie men who are not afraid to have convictions of their own upon either popular or unpopular subjects and not afraid to state those convictions when the interests of the right appear to demand such statement we clip a few extracts from a late issue of the herald confident that wat they will be appreciated by friend and fee too in this locality 1 A buga SUGa suggestion ESTION judge mckeand Mc Keans grand judicial circus in salt lake of which strickland and hawley rawley Haw raw leyare are the clowns seem to have an itching desire to get got their clutches on the I 1 mormon newspapers if they want a real newspaper quadrille let them come down toomata to omaha oar experience with public persons who have sought to stifle the free utterance of the press enables asto assure them chath that a little exercise at this aline would be not only lively but echil afati gating 1 Fati ng 1 here legie is another hint for a certain class of gentlemen too numerous here about abent for the public good 01 1 TH THE n mroe of or PEACE IN ix utan UTAH ann U hi oh I 1 V e s 0 t E 0 P ol 01 1 t 1 ij ii a I 1 fe fa I 1 raid upon the mormon people are not misunderstood zor der stood by those who know now the tho advento loaa mercenaries who are engaged in it on our late visit to salt lake we were furnished data for ascertaining with tolerable accuracy what the cash price of peace in utah would be if the mormon people could be persuaded to enter the market to buy it our idea ia is that loo with Inel inci incidental dental additions of feet in lodes of galena such as would cost coat little and count much would make polygamy a comparatively moral institution and pro cure a peace as lasting as the tenure of me kean woods co in office brigham young would cease to be a murderer george Q cannon and general wells adulterers the wives and mothers of utah concubines cu bines in the jerk of a lambs tail tall and the church of the latter day saints would be permitted to fall by the natural causes through which alone the fanaticism on it is founded can be undermined and overthrown the next Is a manly assertion by the editor of the determination to stand by his friends by his convictions and by the deserving BY ily ITS FRIENDS we learn from the salt lake which quotes them with unction that various radical editors are giving us much more credit than we deserve for tor standing by our friends in utah these are such rare compliments that we regret the inattention which from a sort of chronic habit of not reading such sheets as the davenport gazette laramie sentinel ac ac has led us to overlook them this paper always stands by its friends without asking the consent of the wandering itinerants who drift about the country in id occupations which would be more respectable if they would turn their attention to rag picking but the derald herald whilst standing by its friends takes jealous care to stand by its convictions it has less fear of public clamor if this be possible than it has contempt for those who delight to vilify and slander it it has fallen to our lot to know the mormon p people eople ana much of their institutions we have known them in their homes and life and have made their peculiar institutions something of a study we have watched their work and have admired the monuments of the enlightened skill and industry which converted a sagebrush waste into a vast beautiful and productive region wo we have also made ourselves acquainted with the purposes and ind alms aims of the utterly corrupt scalps scamps who seek under cover of efforts to reform a people who are their betters in ever every y element of human virtue to ride into in to copt political cai cal notoriety and power u upon po their ruin and with this kind of knowledge w ledge we have decided opinions upon the mormon question which are our own and which we shall at all times express nor ran ian any man or set of men deter us in this yet free land from speaking our senti ments upon that and upon all other public questions as we actually hold them the gallant colonels mentioned below will accept the compliments in the following paragraph in the spirit in which they were ivere penned COL MORROW col morrow supersedes general de do in command of camp douglas this is by order of the president and was dictated by the judicial junta at salt lake I 1 any particular love ferth fon for the frenchman col morrow is a good soldier and an accomplished gentleman if he has the courage to assert independence of the junta he will be true to his duty and preserve his bis record untarnished but nut if he yields to the clamor of mckean co he will fall by the wayside court in the brief briet report which appeared in the NEWS yesterday of yesterdays proceedings in the district court it will win be seen that the court ruled in favor of applying the territorial statute in reference to the peremptory challenging of the j jury MT the following in brief ia Is the line of argument adopted by the defense on the question which it will be seen was based wholly on the previous action of the court this court he has s ruled that it is a united states court that the territorial legisla ture has no authority to prescribe rules rates in the conducting of criminal cases in this court that the code of criminal procedure must be such as is a prescribed by act of congress orby or by the judge under the authority of an act of of congress that this court decided first that in drawing and aeling juries it would follow the mode ladi fadi clied by act of congress and not mot the mode prescribed by the territorial legislature that on the point of compelling the prosecution to elect as to which count of an indictment they would proceed upon the court libed that as the act of congress pro provided vided aided that several beveral offenses might be charged in one indictment in united states courts therefore its discretion was taken away and that it must follow the rule prescribed by the act of congress g re then if the drawing and n nelin 1 I in ssi ond f the jury the form of the indictment and every step hitherto taken in these criminal cases are such as are prescribed by the act of congress and the territorial statute governing such things thins is to be utterly disregarded upon what hypothesis y po thesis can the prosecution claim that the act of congress giving to the defendant ten and to the prosecution two peremptory challenges in criminal cases be now disregarded dand daud aud and set aside and the outcast and despised territorial law hitherto huld as invalid and worthless adopted as a rule for this court the learned counsel mr fitch referred to the territorial law which chic prescribes that the P prosecution r 0 se cution and defense should each have li six peremptory challenges but said that if the decision of the court upon the manner of drawing juries and the form of the indictment were consistently followed it must result that the act of congress with respect to challenging juries after they were drawn should also ano be followed and irit were held in consonance with previous rulings that the territorial statute had bad not authority and that the act of congress prescribing a mode of challenging juries was not authority and this court was at liberty as perhaps was the case to exercise its discretion in forming a rule regulating the number of challenges then the defense asked that that discretion be exercised as it had hitherto been exercised and that the practice be assimilated to the rule prescribed proscribed by congress and not to the rule prescribed by the territorial legislature the following is the ruling of the court on this point this court has and counsel on both sides admit that it has two kinds of jurisdiction one is in cases arising under the laws of congress the other is in cases arising un der the laws of the territory there is no dispute about that the grand jury of this court finds and always has found two kinds of indictments one for of fences against of the United Stat esthe other tor for of fences against the laws of the territory in the first class of cases the indictments are entitled the united states vs john doe it in the other class of cases the indictments are entitled the people of the united states in the territory of utah vs john doe now tho the act of congress cited here under which ic it Is claimed that the pro prosecution seca shall be limited to two peremptory challenge and the defendant allowed ten expressly applies to offenses against the united states in so many anglo angio saxon words the indictment at bar is for an offense against the laws of the territory there thero you have it gentlemen after all the iho argument plainly and distinctly so that a child cannot misunderstand it the act cited here applies expressly to indictments for offenses against the united states there is not any doubt about it the indictment here is fon tor an offense against a Ferrit territorial orial law I 1 think I 1 need no admonition from counsel to be consistent with myself I 1 intend to be without any lecturing on that score the act cited does not apply hence the act of the territory applying to such a case as this not coming in conflict with any act of congress does apply that is all there is about it each party is entitled to six challenges at the session ot of the court on friday afternoon the assistant prosecuting counsel in a the hawkins case closed his bis argument and was waa followed by miner 9 and d fitch who made an au eloquent and po powerful defense for the accused the court then adjourned until seven last evening at which hour it again assembled when the argument for the prosecution was closed by tho the acting U S attorney the court then than delivered the following charge to th the jury ejury GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY juby after yoa you you voa shall have deliberated there will be one of two things for you to say blay either guilty or not guilty if you ou say not guilty I 1 that is the end of the case le if you say sak ai 9 guilty 11 then all the other con sequences rest with somebody else and not with you if you say guilty then it will be for the court to nay gay ay w whether n ether the prisoner prison ershall shall bo be ampt imprisoned and fined or imprisoned only or fined only and it will be for the court to say whether he shall be imprisoned for twenty years or for three years or ant any number of years between the two it t will be a for the court to say whether he shall be fined three hundred dollars or one thousand dollars or any number of dollars between the two and if you say guilty and the court pronounces sentence then whether the prisoner shall bhail be pardoned or not is neither meither for you nor the court to say that belongs to the executive department of the government each department part ment has its duties it is for you to weigh and pass upon the facts it is for me to pass upon the law I 1 have no more business to invade your province than you have to invade mine I 1 shall express no opinion upon the facts no juror juron has ever heard me do it As to whether you ought to believe a certain witness and disbelieve another or whether the evidence given by a certain witness proves such a tact fact or not is not for me to say it is for you i to say what is the law applicable to the case cise is foi for me cosay to say bay and then you yon are to apply the tho facts which you find to be proved to the laii law and render your verdict and a as to law how shall it be construed how interpreted how applied thi there ere is an instrument known in english history called magna charta centuries a ago it was granted to the tho english barons ango and signed by king john it is the foundation of E english a perty party and of american liberty suppo suppose so we wore to look into that document and find that it guarantee guarantees 3 the right of trial by jury then suppose some man in england who who had demanded trial by jury when accused had t een ceen met by the objection of a lawyer that be he had bad no right to it but magna charta secures me that right no matter says saya the lawyer the king who gave that charter was the most odious tyrant that ever deserved and received the hatred of englishmen therefore it must not be construed to secure to you the right ot of trial by i jury ury that king was a despot and arboga arrogated t ed to himself all power what t think hi you the court would do the court on rt would simply look at the letter of the law and if it were clear plain unambiguous distinct would say bay 1 I care not for the character of the king who signed the decree or charter there is the plain letter of the law the prisoner shall have the benefit of lei ILI it suppose in the reign of king henry esth of england parliament had bad passed an aa act prohibiting adultery and pronounced penalties upon it some men were indicted under it and objection is taken that the construction of the law given by the prosecution is not the just construction wh why 9 because king henry esth was one of t the most licentious adulterers that ever sat on the english throne and when he signed and approved that act of parliament he could not have meant any such thing Wh what would atwould the courts do they would read the act and if it were plain clear distinct in its terms so that there was no opportunity for misunderstanding it the court would say |
