The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1890-12-13
A.SWEEPING DECISION
Z. s. Grand Juries of Washing
ton Declared Invalid.
A CALIFORNIA JUDGES THEORY.
He Renders Startling Opinion, but
Can't Override Judge Hanford-
Col. Winston Discredits Him.

The announcement is made In the following
dispatch that all indictments found by the
United states grand jury since the admission
OF Washington as a state are invalid.
Judge Hanford could not be found last night;
but an able attorney to whom the matter was
referred laughed at the decision OF the California
judge, and said 1t could have no possible effect.
The dispatch is as follows:
SAN FRANCISCO, Dee. I2-George Dixon, the
alleged Seattle smuggler, was released from Gus,
tody by order of Judge Hoffman, OF the United
States district court, who set aside deiec-
tive the indictment returned by jurors drawn
from the Northern division OF the district OF
Washington. This instrument should, BIS
honor ruled, have been found by Jurors drawn
from the district at large. and not from
any subdivision of 1t. This ruling, il is claimed,
will undo the ten months work by Washington
jurors, and l69 indictments returned by them
will be invalid.
When Colonel P. II. Winston, the United
States district attorney, was shown the dispatch
at o'clock this morning, he said: sit seems to
me that there must be mistake, and that the
man who sent you the dispatch has
misstated Judge Hoffman, position IN
the argument. For when the fed
eral court was created in Washington, the
district was made into four divisions. These
divisions practically independent districts,
except for the fact that one judge is allowed to
preside at the courts held in all four.
"The act instituting the federal court in this
district provides in express terms that at the
court held In any one division no indictment
can be found except for an act committed in that
division. The Indictment must be brought in
the division where the offence occurred. SO you
see that the division courts are in that way as
independent of each other as separate district
courts would be-
Accordingly the grand jurors must be drawn
for any division court from that division, and
not from the district at large.
ss1he rulino of TudOp Hoffman, far from
being correct, as reported, is the exact reverse.
Indeed, the courts have held that proceedings
for contempt for the violation OF decree OF
federal court rendered in one division can not
be held in another division.
IN the case of o. d. Taylor for alleged con-
tempt for the violation of decree rendered in
Wala Walla, Judge Hanford, who rendered the
decree in Walla Nalla, refused to hear in Sc
attic the proceedings for violation. Mr. Taylor
appeared before him in Seattle but the judge
continued the case to the Wala Walla division,
where the decree was rendered.
Ii Judge Hoffman is correctly reported, then
we have had no grand jury since the Federal
seems to me that il We have really had no grand
jury and the ruling attributed 10 Judge Hoffman
be valid, l should have heard something about
the matter from the department OF justice at the
national capital.
'.Yet have my reports to that department,
KEEPING separate the from each division Of
been kept separate, ought to have heard from
Washington about it,
Furthermore, 1t should be remembered that
Judge Hoffman is district judge. His rulings
are on the same footing rs those of Judge Han
ford, and he has no power to review Judge Han
fords."
Mr.. 7. C. Sullivan, the assistant district attor-
ney, said s"This Dixon did his smuggling last
May. He was indicted in June and then ran
away to California.
''He was arrested there few days ago. He
was brought before Judge Hoffman on a habeas
corpus, and now the judge in this proceeding
releases the prisoner on the ground that the
original Indictment is not valid.