Godfrey and Stephen M. White represented a group of defendants who in 1882 were prosecuted for having violated the Sunday closing laws that had been in effect in Los Angeles for the preceding nineteen years. Answering a prosecution against saloonkeeper Jacob Phillipi, who had "knowingly and willfully" kept his business open on Sunday, Godfrey argued that the law was being enforced only against "one class" of business, that of saloons, and he compared the prosecution to that of the burning of witches in Salem, Massachusetts. The jury was unable to return a verdict, seven for conviction and five for acquittal, and it was dismissed.