The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1884-11-19
WILLING TOOLS.
Inside Facts of the Case
Against Lufkins.
ILL A PERSONAL SPITE.
turaI Crops Will Flourish
on Alkali Flat,

Another instance of how signally the
United states Prosecuting Attorneys
sometimes fail to make out their cases,
even with such engines as grand juries
to aid them in summoning witnesses
and delving things to the bottom; and
an instance of how both prosecution
and Grand Jury may be used to crafty
personal spite-especially if the object
of that spite be anything in the shape of
Mormon-is found in the result of the
recent case of the United States against
John T. Lufkins. Mr.. Lufkins was tried
for perjury. His trial lasted two days,
and the jury failed to agree, seven mem
bers of it being of the opinion that he
was innocent and FIVE that he was guilty.
The somewhat extraordinary charge
upon which Mr.. Lufkins was indicted
was that he had sworn a certain piece of
land out on Alkai Flat, over the JOr-
dan river, was a desert tract. There
is hardly sane man in the city, who
has travelled over that range, but knows
that it is an expanse of land on which
Sage-brush and greaseWoOd alone
flourish, and that rabbits and coyotes
have TO shift TO exc out an existence
upon it, a HERALD reporter,
who followed the course of the
trial and who listened to the
cloud of witnesses whose testi-
mony broke down the prosecution,
noticed that the case contained several
peculiar phases. One was that each of
the Grand Jury brought on the stand to
testify for the pTOSecutian stated that
he had been accompanied to the land
and guided in his investigation by one
Charles Gilmore. Another was that a
principal witness for the prosecution
was this same man Gilmore, and still
another was that several witnesses
brought forward simply for the
purpose of impeaching the words of
Gilmore were at once muzzled by Mr..
Varian, who said that Mr. Gilmore was
not on trial. The court sustaining the
prosecution, nothing was adduced that
would throw any light on Mr.. Gilmore's
vivid interest in the matter. At the
waited upon Mr.. Lufkins, Mr.. George
Lufkins-his ep-father-Messrs. Darke
& Kenner, who ably managed the de-
tense, and one or two others
acquainted with the facts. From
them 1t was learned that
Charles Gilmore lives near the land in
question, and was the chief witness
against Mr. Lufkins. both before the
Grand Jury and at the trial. Gilmore
owns some cattle and horses, and these
animals found a living on the land un-
til the middle of the summer, and be-
ing close at hand they gave him no
trouble TO herd them. He desired to
have this land remain the property of
the government, so that he could have
the use of it free of rent, and has said
that people have no business to come
near him taking up his range, and he
has also boosted to Mr.. Lufkins, that
gentleman states, that he would allow
no man to prove up on the land near
him. In tact, he has done his best to
keep out settlers, and being of violent
disposition, Mr.. Geo. Lufkins states, he
has inaugurated a reign of terror over
Jordan on small scale. and many of
his neighbOrs are afraid to testify
against him. He admitted on the wit
ness stand having prevented people
from driving their sheep over this land
he was not going to have sheep near
him, he said, and, according to Mr.
Lufkins and others, he has frequently
drawn firearms upon little or no pro-
vocation.
A good many other instances of Mr..
Gilmore's peculiar bent of temper were
furnished us, but they are not needed in
the present article. All whom we con-
versed with, however, were of the
opinion that the Grand Jury and the
prosecution had been used as tools
to crafty the personal spite of one indi-
vidual, and the more readily that the
persons he aimed to convict were Nor
mons. Gilmore himself will be remem-
bered as the apostate- Mormon who sat
on the Clawson jury, and whom Mr..
Bennett made an Intellectual effort to
challenge off. 1t is whispered that he
himself will be the next to figure in the
court annals, number of his neigh
bors having ample material for a
capital case against him.