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Show Guilt vs. Technicality The Braasch-Sullivan-Rittcr-Sandack farce still rocs on and people continue to lose respect for the courts of Utah. After six years, the two young hoodlums who brutally murdered Howard Manzione, Beaver service station attendant, attend-ant, still bask in the Utah state prison while A. Wally Sandack, Salt Lake City attorney, continues to drag the case through court after court, always on technicalities, never on the question of guilt or innocence. The case was stymied in Judge Willis Ritter's Court in Salt Lake City during much of the time, while all other courts in the land could find nothing wrong with the trial procedure and could find no reason why the two young punks should not pay the price for their crime. More than two months ago the Tenth Court of Appeals Ap-peals reversed Judge Ritter's decision on the case and ordered or-dered him to dismiss within 30 daysjthe habeas corpus petition pe-tition under which he had held tho two criminals for so long. ' People thought then that at long last the two would be brought to justice, but time dragged on and nothing was done, until last week end attorney Sandack petitioned tlfe United States Supreme Court to review the Braasch-Sulli-van case again. This can be nothingvnore than another of many, many "delaying actions," but because of the delaying delay-ing action a stay of order to the district court has been made until Jan. 2, 1956, pending a i-eview of the petition by the U. S. Supreme Court. On Oct. 2, 1949, the two men, just "bumming" their way around the country, shot Manzione down in cold blood as they robbed the service station for additional funds for more "bumming." When they were apprehended they not only openly admitted the crime buf laughed at the officers offic-ers and the courts, and were almost boastful of what they had done. ? The young hoodlums blatantly re-enacted the crime; but six years later they have not paid for it, all because the courts seem to be more concerned with technicalities than with actual guilt or innocence of the criminal. Since the first trial in the district court, when Braasch and Sullivan were found guilty and sentenced to death, the matter of whether the men actually committed the crime or not has not been the deciding factor. In fact we can find no place where it has ever been mentioned. Rather, technicalities tech-nicalities of whether "these poor misguided boys" were wrongfully treated when they were arrested and tried for their crime, has delayed their punishment year after year. Feople are wondering just how much glory attorney Sandack is getting out of his "loophole" fight to free thes? two confessed murderers. |