Show The Law of Conspiracy ED DEMOCRAT Your morning con temporary in Sundays issue airs anew its legal lore under the heading The Law of Conspiracy and says Judge Stone of the Common Pleas Court at Cleve land Ohio has some ideas on the law of conspiracy that are evidently not shared by some members of the Salt Lake bar unless they have progressed somewhat in their reading from where they were a year ago It was then argued that a conspiracy I con-spiracy to kill U S I Marshal Ireland was not a crime and practically that the kill ing must actually have been done etc The article so well illustrates the morn ing papers usual accuracy and reliability in legal matters that it is worthy of brief comment As a matter of fact no lawyer outside the said journals editorial corps ever argued or supposed that there was any question of conspiracy whatever involved in-volved in the charge against Treseder as to killing Marshal Ireland The complaint com-plaint being brief I give it in full to wit TEBKliOBY OF tITAn COUNTY OP SALT LUrE ssToEdward B Ontehelow Esquire Commissioner Com-missioner of the Supremo Court of said Ter ritory E A Ireland of Salt Lake City in the County of Salt Lake Territory of Utah on behalf of the People of said Territory on oath complains that Frank Treseder of j Salt Lake City in the County of Salt Lake ana jerntory or Utah on the 15th day of February in the year of our Lord one thou sand eight hundred and sixtYSIX at Salt Lake City in the County of Salt Lake and Territory aforesaid did wickedly maliciously and feloniously solicit and endeavor to per suade one Thomas Murray willfully feloni ously and of his malice aforethought to kill and murder this affiant that thereby then I and there he the said Frank Treseder did attempt to commit the crime of murder against the peace and dignity of the People of the Territory of Utah and contrary to the form of the statute in such case made and provided wherefore complainant prays that a warrant may issue for the arrest of said Frank Treseder and that he be dealt with according to law E A IRELAND Complainant Subscribed and sworn to before me this 2d day of March A D 1886 E B CBTTCHELOW Commissioner Supreme Court Territory of Utah I find that the within complaint charges no offense and therefore order that accused be discharged E T SPJUQUE U S Comr You see that conspiracy is not men ioned in it i that none of its elements are stated anu mat out one person is charged with any offense whatever Nobody ever I argued or claimed that Murray joined in the offense of Treseder whatever it was He was the chief witness for the prose cution To any other than a Tribune lawyer it would occur at once that one person cannot alone make a conspiracy that it is of the essence of this crime that two or more join in it Nor was the form of I the complaint in this respect a matter of inadvertence The U S Attorney gave personal attention to the subject and doubtless recognized instantly that conspiracy would not lie He made no claim that conspiracy was charged or that any offense other than attempt to murder was committed The indictment c i 7 j G o iki1 I afterwards found is foe the lastnamed crime Notwithstanding these undisputed facts it is probable the Republican organ will claim there is no substantial difference between the offense charged ond conspiracy conspir-acy between an attempt to murder made by one man and a conspiracy by two or more for the same purpose That a paper which cannot see so plain a distinction dis-tinction should keep saying it is right and that it cannot afford to be wrong as if the latter was evidence of its being right is preposterous But if the charge against Treseder had been conspiracy the Tribune would still be all wrong and its strictures baseless Judge Stone as reported nowhere gives countenance to the idea that merely to solicit and endeavor to persuade constitutes con-stitutes the crime charged He says expressly that the question of conspiracy is to be decided by the acts of the parties after they had united in a common purpose I pur-pose and this was probably a correct statement of the law of that case though not applicable to all grades of that crime It is not the vague loose unreliable character of the stuff which the morning paper gives as legal information that I criticise so much as it is the fact that it insists on its readers giving credence to it Nobody cares for the braying of a mule or an ass as such but when the animal keeps insisting that it makes acceptable music it becomes a nuisance Salt Lake City March 23 1887 T I |