The San Francisco call., 1897-11-29
EbankS Will Not Hang
at San Quentin Next
Friday.
The Murderer'S Case Now in a
Deplorable and Hope
less Tangle.
Unless Warden Hale Executes the
Man He May Have to Answer
for Contempt.
Special Dispatch to THE CALL

SAN QUENTIN PRISON, Nov. 28-
ton of Joseph J. Ebanks, the triple mur.
derer from San Diego, but owing to the
tangle that the Judges, wardens and al
tcrneys have managed to get into there is
little prospect that the condemned man
will mount the gaIlows.
Ebanks is in Murderers' Row eating,
slee ping and growlng fatter every day at
the expense of the taxpayers of the State,
and when be will be called upon to again
elm the long flight of stairs to the death
cham bers at the foot of the gailows is a
question hard 10 answer. Warden Hale
is also at loss TO give a reply TO it. for
when he was asked to-day he said he
didn't know and as 10 hanging Ebanks
next Friday he would act solely upon the
advice of the Attorney General.
But Ebanks is not worrying over his
fate. Like his companion, Durrant, he
knows that if be goes to the condemed
cha Der it will be only for short time
when he will again come out of the door
through which he entered and once more
take up his quarters with the other felons
convicted of murder.
The Ebanks case is in hopeless muddle
and while one court has ordered the man
to be executed another has rendered il
possible for the murderer 10 escape the
penalty, and up in the Supre me Court of
the State the Justices are debating
whether Captain John c. Edgar should be
made to pay $500 fine for not hanging
EbanKs when he was first ordered to do
so by Judge Terrence of San Diego.
Captain Edgar was then acting warden
OF San Quentin Prison and the execution
Of Ebanks dcvolved upon him, but, as the
pubic is aware, Ehanks was not hanged
and his attorneys by appealing to the
U ni.ed States Supreme Court managed to
obtain stay Of judgment and Ebanks
was spared for time at least the ignomy
of death upon the gallows.
The abuse OF habeas corpus proceedin gs
and the obtaining OF stays upon frivolous
appeals to the higher courts is illustrated
only too plainly in the Ebanks case
The prisoner committed cold -blooded
murders, taking the lives of an aged man
and woman, neither of whom was
physically able 10 offer resistance. The
couple were shot only that Ebanks might
rob them OF the few cents they had about
them. While for these murders only
Ebanks was convicted, he also murdered
an old man and stole watch
from him. For this latter crime he
was not tried. After Ebanks had
been convicted and sentenced to
death by Judge Torrance, and while he
was still in Sheriff jennings control in
the san Diego County Jai he made a con-
fession in which he told in minute detail
to Sheriff Jennings and others how he
committed the deed which ended the
lives of Mrs. Stiles and her aged father.
Ebanks asserted that he killed the old
man first, and then murdered the woman
for fear she would tell about the crime.
He gave her time to pray, and when she
had finished he shot her with the same
pistol which, few minutes before, h ad
sent her father to his final resting place
1t is for such man as this that the gal
lows at San Quentin is yearning in
uaip