The Weekly orb., 1899-07-02
"The Laws Delay"

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 The laws delay is oue of the sources of evil in the administration of justice against which there i3 mnch complaint, as the avenues of escape from the conse. ouences of misdee;.s and promoter of distrust in the courts as engines of jns. tice.
 If trials could always be had imme,li. ately after the offense had been com. mltted and while all the events are fresh in the minds of the witnesses, before public interest has weakened and before important witnesses had died or been spirited away, it might be easier to secure convictions and thereby en. force greater respect for the law
 Another drawback to the present con- dition of administering justice in Go. chise county, as we'll as other counties l of the territory, is the continual prac. tice of lawyers having the cases post poned from one term of court to anoth. CT; this not only puts the county to greater expense, but in time undoubt- edly results in the acquital of prisoners who are, in a majority of,cases; guilty of the crimes flor wi ich they were indicted. During the present. tern of the districtcourt three or four cases have been continued until the fall term ne, case, that of Mississippi Tom," having been continued from the November term, 1898. " s'@
 While this sort of thing not only puts the county to expense, the witnesses are taken from their work and hauled over to Tombstone at considerable expense.
 There is another evil which has just 1 been strikingly emphasized in an Iowa court of justice, and which even a speedy calling into action of the machinery of , justice cannot wholly eliminate, and , that is the legal technicality which too often defeals the ends of justice. In the case referred to the accused was charged , with foully murdering neighbor. The proof was ample, and under the law the man should have paid the extreme perl.- alty, but the judge held with the defense , that, owing to tecbnicality, the most , that the jury could do was to bring in a , verdict of nianslaughter. A mistake . had been made ia the name: of draw ing the indictment, and the prisoner got , ten years in the penitentiary, instead of the death penalty. .,.,..rss ..
 This is bat one inetance of many in which persons guilty of offenses against the law have escaped, either wholly or in part, the consequences of their crimes because of legal technically. Only two years ago there were three cases of the same kindnthis county. The men were charged with murder, two of them being the most cold bleoded, and the prisoners should have been hanged, but under law which had been raiiroaded through the 18th legislature they could only be convicted of manslaughter, and were sentenced to ten years in Yuma. Every such case as these were Weakens respect for the law and the manner of it's administration, and Yet there scene to be no help for it.
 During tine past week at Tom betone, two men, the Halderman brothers, have been convicted of murder in the first degree and were sentenced to be hanged on the 25th of August; now the attor. neys for the defense have filed notice of appeal to the supreme court of the territory, and the district court has |granted them until July 20 to file a bill of exceptions. As the supreme court does not meet until October it is very evident the execution cannot be carried out at tine time Set. The su- preme court will have to act on the ap peal, and in the mean time tho defend- ants counsel may discover some flaw in the papers when new hearing would be granted. '.
 The crime for which these men have beeu found guilty was one of the most cold plooded that has been committed in this county for years. Two officers Constable Ellsworth and Deputy Moore were shot down while allowing the prisoners to obtain their clothing after being placed under arrest. Had they beer. captured by the ranchers in the vicinity of the scene of the killing, in- stead of by the officers, the county would not have been putto the expense of their trial, and it is only the thought that fthese prisoners would be justly and swiftly punishedfor their heinous crime that has kept the people in check, and the delay now caused by the appeal is anything but satisfactory to them.
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