Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1871-12-29
Report of the Acknowledgement.

The annual report of Attorney General
Reed has been transmitted to the Secretary
of State, before publication. The following
are the matters of most general interest,"
The case of the State against the Peck
bondsmen, as the newspapers have before re-
ported, will come again before the law court
in July next, for a hearing which the Attor-
ney-General ventures to hope will be final.
Judgment has already been rendered for the
State for the amount of the bond, and execu-
ton ordered to issue for $50. 23l.19, with in
terest from January 10, 1861, amounting in
| all to over $4,000 A final hearing has been
allowed by Judge Tapley on exceptions. The
| matter of the State against Walter Brown
and John Wyman, who obtained from Treas
uer Peck some $500 belonging to the State,
has been compromised, with the approval of
the Governor aud Council. under the author.
ity of a resolve adopted by the legislature of
1871. One of the defendants is dead and the
other well stricken in years, and the claims
have been settled for $4,000.
In the case of Reed, Attorney General.
against the Portland and kennebec Railroad
Company, an information in the nature of a
writ of quo warranto, to test the validity of
the so-ealed consolidation of the Portland
and Kennebec Railroad Company with the
Maine Central Company, the facts were
agreed upon the arrangements by the Attor-
ney- General and by the counsel for the de-
PENDANT corporation, Messrs. J. II. Drum
mond and ARENAS Libby, were submitted to
the full court in July. No decision has yet
been rendered.
The case of the Penobscot Indians against
the Veazie heirs, an action brought by di-
rection Of the legislature, to establish the
title to the Grassy Islands in the Penobseot
river near Oldtown, has been decided in favor
of the heirs.
Three capital cases are included in this re-
port-the trial of Edward l.. Hoswell, con-
victed of the crime of manslaughter COM
mitted at Hallowell; of John DAILY, arrested
at Lewiston for murder, and acquitted on the
ground that the act was committed in self.
defence; and Of Elbridge Reed convicted of
the murder of John Ray in Penobscot coun-
ty.
The Hoswell trial illustrates defect in
our laws to which the Attorney General adj
verted last year, and to which he returns in
the present report. The only witness of the
murder was Hoswell's wife, yet her testimony
was excluded by her husbands objection,
while the criminal himself was heard. Mr.
Reed argues that the statute admits the tes-
mony of husbands and wives when most like
ly to be true, thus defeating justice for the
sake Of protecting a problematieal domestic
band found his wife in the act of adultery
and pursuing the adulterer in court, was de-
MED hearing as witness on the ground that
his evidence wodld duplicate his own wife,
'lf such should prove to be the law in this
State" says the Attorney-General, the imi-
tftors of Sickle-, Cole and Mcfarland would
have nearer a9proach to decent excuse for
taking the law into their own hands than was
ever supposed"
The method of taking recognizances in
criminal cases the report says, is the subject
of complaint IN the part of the County At
torneys Any two justices of the peace,
chosen by the accused, may admit him to
bail, and in certain cases even reduce the
amount; they may take such sureties as
they choose, and exercise entire control of
the whole matter. la Bangor, not long since,
prisoner accused of serious offence, was
held by the Judge of the police court, in
$1,000, and two sureties offered for that sum
were refused because by their own showing
hey were not worth so much. The bail was
afterwards increased to 1000, and the
prisoner went to Jail but that night two JUS
tees of the peace accepted as sureties for
$4,000 the very men whom the police Judge
had in open court, in the same case, on the
same day, refused for $1,000. The Attorney
General observes that since Justices of the
peace have been deprived of most of their
judicial functions by the laws creating trial
justices, the character of these functionories
has materially changed and our system of
bail ought to he changed accordingly.
The County Treasurers are again delin-
quent, less than one third of them having re-
ported the expenses of criminal proceedings
in their several counties.