Show VAGARIES chosic ahio hive taken the palas pains to read carefully y the whole of mr var tans ians voluminous i argument in the thompson case at be bearer araud and have devoted time to the theme of ale he orator to form conclusions at all must if they read comprehensively aud reflected without prejudice have concluded that there were a great many things conspicuous by their absence and a still greater array dim diminutive inu by their presence As a whole the speech to call it in an argument meat is to it without sufficient cause is at strikingly r h angly suggestive of the effort of a police coutt court lawyer who has read just enough of law to form superficial conclusions and having no ao comprehension of the he philosophy of I 1 his matter or its fitness for the occasion puts in his efforts wherever there is a pi place a ce b big I 1 g enough tu to receive them the fact that as a prosecuting officer he struck his hia colors and went over to the opposition would not amount to anything if the conditions otherwise h had ad been proper it is a circumstance r q cidh occurs out but rarely for the reason that ht the accused wring having a representative supposedly the peer eer of the pee peoples attorney and iced whose duty it Is to make the details and theory of his case his special care the s services vick of the ofie one who prosecutes offic officially tir ily need meed not be drawn out in that direction but be confined to his own side of the te pase a s 0 still I 1 it is not only his right ta but at his is duly to ts take ke t the e interests terest of it athe e whole people into cons consideration erat n an and remember that hou hounding in a prisoner to an unjust conviction vacti ri is I 1 not what hat the better classes iti require quire at his bis hands bands in short he is not supposed to be the hero biro of a legal combat at the expense of suffering innocence no even though his bis calling be to prosecute but was there such a state of affairs in the case of the the people vs thompson as justified mr varian in forsaking his bis position in the proceeding to adopt that of the defense we answer no and mean no because we are as sure we w are right t as we are certain cemin that rv tab gentleman referred to was wrongs wrong in law wrong in fact morally and logically wrong after stating that the case hinged upon a proposition of law as to whether or not an officer armed with a wa warrant arant and a browning rl rifle ae had bad a right to take life in the furt furtherance arance erance and completion of his bis duty and that he had devoted considerable time and arid study to the subject mr varian says that this question involves perhaps the construction of the federal law as it is exemplified in the statutes as well as the construction of the territorial law in relation loA to kindred matters I 1 prefer in my discussion to consider the matter solely new in the lighton light of the federal law As your honor is aware there is no common law criminal crimins common law known to the jurisprudence of the united states there are no commom law offenses our ancestors did not bring with them that portion of he body of the common law this was a very artful commencement curn mencer it has the ring of fairness in it when considered per se it is only when giyen its place in the chain which follows and consid considered ereo as a link thereof it ereon that its fairness withers as you rou proceed and finally disappears ia altogether together he A would have it understood that the question involves a con st ruction of the federal law likewise of the territorial law but bat later on the reader will have no difficulty in finding the place where he be throws wo the latter overboard altogether repudiates it as so much surplusage words and sentences having a meaning but no actual forar force or effect this would naturally give rise to the question as to the necessity of discussing it at such great length or for that matteri matter of dis discussing cassing it at all que one has to go to the pages of current history and resort somewhat to nn immediate mediate comparison to ascertain exactly what the attorneys meaning was for be assured he had a meaning and it was not the dramatic effect consequent upon a great forensic display altogether either it is pretty well known that mr varian to is an adept in the matter of rea re himself when occasion ze requires quires such a performance those who do not know this can post themselves by looking dver overtly his record as an attorney in salt lake we cite one instance when certain officers of the city government ern ment something ething over ever a year ear ago took such steps as seemed to them available and effective to abolish the practice of prostitution in our midst the first two or three of the cues cases brought against offenders were appealed to the district court here hem mr varlan varian in his official ial bapa capacity rapacity city again went overto over to the defense and aad moved to dismiss every one of the tee cases alleging alleain as tits his excuse that he would not believe belleve the witnesses upon whose testimony the convictions vict ions were had in the court below under oath but shortly after eiffer deff desiring irin to wreak vengeance upon the A chief hil mover in the scheme against the prosecutors friends friend 3 he be cooc concocted ted the scheme of having said mover indicted and prosecuted for conspiracy to secure which in both instances he used the evidence of the very val men he chehad had ly stated to the court were not previously grevious t to prosecute with I 1 this will d do 0 1 lor or 0 one ne instance and serves to ena en A lighten us to to why he used the territorial rit statute lor fora a while and then threw it away like a loathsome thing because it served his bis purpose to ta use it for a time giving as it does authority to an officer to kill a fugitive when the punishment of the offense charged in the warrant would subject the offen der to imprisonment im rison ment in m the ipe penitentiary and asfor for the further reason that it gives his bis so called argument the ne necessary c veneering of all sided consideration and coin comprehensiveness later on when the necessary groundwork had beon been laid with its assistance and it was necessary to crown the work w with ith a national great crest the statute could not figure and perforce bad had to go the fact that this inconsistency was glaring must most have occurred to himself when he thought it all over but what of that As in the instance cited his purpose had bad been accomplished and stultification was an altogether inferior matter if of the united united states coni t concerning wh which ch there is no dispute impute if it is not baily superior to but erasime of the 1116 local enactment on the same a subject which we deny the pleader should have planted himself upon it exclusively another reason why he did not do this was because to a knowledge acknowledge its potency acy first last and all the time would have been to make most of othis bis vapid rhetoric not even showy lor for the time being he says the common law to is not recognized where the statutes define offenses which to is thit that the government statute in relation to all things is supreme very well the cgovern ment law has as he be himself stated in a moment of thoughtlessness set aside the common law rule which made polygamy and unla w ful cohabitation capital crimes and reduced them to the rank of mere misdemeanors misdemeanor oi rs for the reason as given truly by himself again that we are wiser better and more merciful now than when the common law edict bad full sway just so yet varian while praising the riv on which has so ameliorated our condition as to reduce the pa pains ins and penalties attached to a vib violation lation ot ol certain laws shows how those who commit biml such violations hive have not nob changed chain ged anions an iota how the offense it self sef has not changed lit it Is only the name of the thing that has undergone transformation harther I 1 other words unlawful lawf al cohabitation in 1668 was a capital crime under the common law and punishable with death under the law of today to day it is a misdemeanor punishable with imprisonment and fine thinks thanks to our enlarged beans and expanded min mads but being be as bad now as r etever lever was wa wasand aasand sand practiced b bras depraved bawit men as ad of yore we call it amilde misdemeanor meaning thereby phereby that we have advanced as relates to the title of ta the but buti reach the authors of such sin plu with the same punishment that hit was inflicted years ago thus practically still lingering in the dart daric ages when it is necessary that a brutal dep deputy uty marshal be upheld int in the slaughter of man only accused ot of the lightest grade of offense known to the highest statutory ii law I 1 for a lawyer it is absurd to discuss tile the subject of common law in the way mr varian does it for the reason that he gives no satisfaction asto as to whether pr or not it is our reliance now or ever has bas been as a means of determining not sufficiently explained otherwise what ib the common law conc concerning elming which the prosecuting attorney speaks so flippantly Is it or not a collection of precepts and practices evolved out of the necessary demands of people int in different ages from the dawn of christianity down to heerah ho era of printing presses and steam locomotion it if it ills is not bot them the euw unwritten itten law meaning by its very denomination atiat that it has no origin no special record and no pecullar peculiar application what elso else is 10 it it is applicable where there is no other form of law and where other forms prevail lt it passes into its proper sphere of df a historical guide an illuminator by precept only it Is is in force where nothing more recent has been crested created because crude though it is it contains essentially the requisite philosophy for our guidance androv and government ern ment As soon as there is a statutory enactment by a competent body upon a particular subject the common law is no mo longer operative as relates to that subject mr varian said as much in substance but in other places imald so much tile the other way that one expression neutralized the other why he say that a law of congress had completely rubbed outtie out the common law lakamy and unlawful felo as its own work all that we can now recognize as thelah the law in relation to the me legal measure of those offenses the provision that they are misdemeanors pure purely IT sim simply 9 y and uncontrovertibly was it t not because cause to have done so would have beaw to fully represent the calling he is supposed sed to follow by appearing as the peoples advocate and demanding at the hands of the jury simple justice for the people and further because the defendant was in 16 only for killing a mormon and that to have been consistent there would have been to be inconsistent with his inconsiderate unconditional unreasonable malignity toward everything and everly everybody body wearing the name of mormon Mo raaon here bore it looks that way he would rather let thompson go with twenty mortal murders on an his crown if needs bi 00 than jeopardize what he doubtless cherishes so dearly his toward the people of utah |