Show MANIFEST INJUSTICE THE case of wm win geddes eddes Gr ol 01 plain city deserves more than the notice kiven given in the account of el the trial in the first district court the consideration of other matters has occupied all the spice space at our command the defendant was convicted of unlawful cohabitation although the th evidence was positive that he had lived only with the leebl wife the defendant and his two wives all testified the wives being called by the prosecution and mr geddes and the legal wife for the defense their united statements under oath were to the effect that the accused made au an arrangement with his plural wife just before the passage of the edmunds law by which he be would cease to live with her and that he be had not cohabited with her since july 1882 he had gone occasionally casio nally to the term farm where she lived to talk with the boys on business ot other 4 er witnesses had seen the defendant ab about t the prep premises ilses in the corral and in the yard but always in the day time there was no testimony showing bowing that the accused had bad lived with his bis plural wife one day or one night during the whole period cov covered ered by the indictment yet he was convicted on tour four counts it if the reason for this kind ef 01 justice is want wanted edit it will be found I 1 in a the rabid and absurd demand of the prosecuting attorney upon a jury so selected that conviction was almost as certain as indictment mr dickson worked upon the prejudices of a picked anti antii I mormon jury by declaiM declaiming 1139 against the mormon church and denouncing the defendant asa member thereof and also alsid by ouch buch reasoning as this gentlemen it if the defendant has visited the house of his hi plural wife wite during daring the time covered by the indict meat maut tor for any purpose whatever and it if he has eaten in her house once during that period it is cohabitation and i is s ga guilty alty as charged the attorney further warned the jury according to the report of the trial that it if the dete defendant was allowed escape and if ne fie would be permitted to go to the house of his plural wife to see his bis children one time or a dozen polygamous homes could not be up but it they would do their duty time would come corne when this of the mormons cormons Mor mons would bow her in the dust thus the delen da dant was made the object of wrath and vengeance as member of a religious obnoxious to the prosecuting and the of being tried on an the merits or demerits of his case demanded by law and justice the evidence in the case of mr geddes was mear clear that he be had made fide ede arrangements with his family to live according to the requirements of the edmunds law and had done so in oct acet living only with me hla legal wit leand wl erand deeding to each family their respective portions of his bis real estate it if this was waa not compliance with the strictest construction Bt st of the terms of the statute we do not know how bow it can be obeyed by anyone any one retaining in his bosom a single spark of humanity but mr dickson claimed as re ported 1 arted that the object of the raw law is to break up and destroy families root and branch we e dispute this construction and defy mr dickson to substantiate it by the language of the law or any inference from it that can be fairly deduced tile the law provides penalties against men who contract polygamous marriages and those who cohabit with more man one woman its object no doubt is to bring to an end tue the practice of plural lural marriage but there is nothing t in it that makes the polygamous status a crime or requires a man to renounce his relationship to his wives and chi children laren and any prosecuting officer who attempts to deceive a jury by claiming that it does or that the laws intent is to break up and destroy existing families goes outside of his bis official province and iter perverts verts misinterprets and in spir spirit violates the law by endeavoring to overawe a jury and to arouse their prejudices and passions so as to procure the punishment of the accused when the evidence falls fails or is detective defective such an excessively ces zealous official would descend to the role of the despicable pettifogger A and hd proclaim his bis unfitness tor lor any official position and his unworthiness of public bolic nolic respect it is difficult difficult to determine in view of the evidence even giving a full estima teto the aroused prejudices of an antl anti mormon jury on what rule they found labe defendant guilty on four counts but it seems that consistency has no place in the minds or conclusions of juries more than prosecutors when the determination is to cinch a mormon and when the amount of the fee is contingent on the conviction of the accused it is easy to understand why mercenary attorneys might gryto impress the jury with the not notion on to convict the defendant is a bound ti duty the gratification h of deep malke malice and boun boundless diess greed are in the nature of things combined combined incentives cen centi tives yes to vindictive energy |