The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1894-05-24
SUPREME COURT
The Madiqan Case to be Argued
Before that High Body
Tomorrow.
The Attorneys for the State Take
a Whirl at the Defend
ants Brief.

Through the kindness of Attorney
General Childs The GAZETTE is able
this week to present the material
points of the brief for the State in the
case against M. M. Madigan, which
appeal from an order refusing new
trial will be argued before the Su-
preme Court tomorrow. The Attor-
neys for the State are H. w. Childs,
Geo. B. Edgerton, attorney-general
and assistant encouragement, and $.
L. Pierce, who so carefully conducted
the prosecution at New Ulm. The
brief is merely an argument OF the
points made by the appellant, Madi-
gan. It first contends that the word
"attorney" as usued in the statute,pro-
viding for writs of attachment means
one who is legally appointed to trans
act business for another, and the fact
that the person is such agent or attor-
ney must be made to appear before
the court can order the issuance of the
writ. The person making the affidavit
in such case does not have to be an
attorney-at-law. The brief continues:
We must either assume that the court or
court commissioner had power to order the
issuance of the writ of attachment without
proof that the person making the afhdav1t
was the attorney for plaintiff, or else it must
be conceded that the sworn statement OF the
defendant that he was such attorney was
legal and material evidence of the tact ana
that the fact was material.
The question whether the person making
the afidavit is in fact an attorney-at-law'
has nothing to do with the question as to
whether he was a competent witness by
whom to prove by afidavit that the person
making the afadavit was the attorney OF
plaintiff.
The State contends that it was un-
necessary to aver that the matter
sworn to was material, cites one or
more rules to that effect, as we'll as
Judge Webber's opinion, not only on
this point, but on all points involved.
The question as to the administration
of the oath is next taken up at length,
and it is contended that an authorized
act under the law is the impression of
the official seal. "The numerous du-
ties of the notary" the State says, "and
the lapse of time would render it next
to impossible for him to remember that
in peculiar instance he, in fact, ad-
ministered an oath before signing
jurat. Hence the Importance of the
verifcation of this jurat at the time OF
signing il" Here is given an extract OF
testimony given by Madigan, wherein
the latter admitted that he made the
affidavit in good faith, if he eyer did
anything in good faith, 81 wouldn't be
foolish enough to go and commit per-
jury for nothing at all; nor for sum
of money; wouldn't" Mr.. Hough-
master testifyng to his own signature
and that of the defendant, and the
affidavit, is also brought out to show
the genuineness of the affidavit, and
the weakness of the stand of the ap-
pellant. The State continues as fol-
lows:
Defendant was a lawyer. He understood
the nature and purport of the instrument he
filed as his aff1davit. The pretense now that
the formal oath is not proved to have been
administered, is on par with the whole line
of defence-hollow, technical and baseless.
STEPPED as defendant was with perjury in
giving his testimony. he was not sufficiently
brazen in the presence of the court and jury
to deny that he had in fact been sworn to
the affidavit. Confronted as he was by the
official record of the notary and of his own
conduct in treating the instrument as his
afidavit, he covered and could go no further
than to say he didn't remember.
Consciousness of guilt is an awful terror
izer. Not only did defendant fail to deny
the fact that he had taken the oath, his man
ner of prevarication and attempted explana-
ton of what was done convict him or half
hearted confession Taken as whole his
testimony stamps him as one desperately in
tent on creating doubt in the minds of the
jurors as to his guilt. It is too unreasonable,
contradictory and equivocal to entitle him to
any credit, and it is not improper for the
jury to reject it when opposed by any other
evidence, and in the matter of the defendant
being actually sworn, the jury were justified
in connection with other evidence and the
circumstances, in entirely rejecting the tes-
timony of defendant.
1t was only necessary for the jury to find
from the evidence that the transaction be-
tween defendant and notary was such that
both defendant and the notary understood
that the oath was taken, no matter what the
form or language.