The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1902-11-11
REGULAR COMIC OPERA.
What CoffeIt Case in Supreme
Court Has Become.

Another batch of legal literature was
/ today added to the record in the COT
1 felt case in the supreme court by the
! Hing of reply brief by COffelts attor-
neys. who are headed by the well known
J w. p. Hackney. When the Coffelt case
| is completed and goes into the court
/ reports of the state as a part of the
states legal literature, the blue pencil
/ should be generously used. The case
has already become noted for the
charges and invective contained in the
\ briefs already filed
0. W. Coffelt was arrested for
the murder of George c. Montgomery
at Winfield, and he has already had two
trials but previous to the second one
/ he asked Judge Lawrence for change
Of venue, which was denied. Then he
appealed to the supreme court, and it is
/ this appeal which is bringing forth all
this .litera ture."
In the first brief Hackney and his as
sooiates charged the Santa F'e Railroad
| company with conspiracy to fix the
murder of Montgomery on the Millers
of 1O1 ranch and those connected with
them, one of whom was Coffelt. 1t was
| charged that Judge Lawrence was in
/ competent to try the case because he
rides on a Santa Fe pass. Then Counrv
Attorney Torrance filed a brief in an
sWer in which there was considerable
levity and sport at the expense of
! Hackney and his associates.
A motion to dismiss was made on the
part of the state and today Hackney
filed his Feply brief on this motion. Sew
eral pages are taken up with pre-
lude" devoted to the attorneys for the
other side. The brief says:
When the attorney general of the
great state of Kansas, the county at
torney Of Cowley county, and Messrs
\ Buchanan and Roberts of counsel for ap-
pellee affixed their names to brief IN
this case upon behalf of this glorious
commonwealth, in which they INDUCED
| in such dOgmatic legendary found on the
| first three their brlPf wherein
they anathematize us as follows:
8 The statements of counsel for ap-
pellant do not commend themselves to
those endowed with q fine sense of pro-
fessional ethics Indeed. the statements,
and, the whole record, for that matter.
! are fraught with the frenZied exuber-
| ance of expanded imagination, and SO
mixed and lumbled with the super
heated afterglow of certain political de-
cadence that it becomes necessary for
appellee to note a few corrections. 1t IS
indeed regrettable that eminent practi-
TONERS who have been hOnOred by the
public and recognized by the courts as
men of great ability. should deiber-
ately put off that dignity which is so
becoming to men of high professional
character and forget the respect due the
highest tribunal of our land by encum
bering its records with bristling eXtrav-
aganza Chat reads more like a pipe
dream, or the translucent Jokes of a
tyro humorist. than serious, dignified
law literature). If the gentlemens aim
is to climax the ludicruous they have
achieved a degree of success beyond
their most sanguine hopes
After quoting another page or two
Mr.. Hackney says:
I'VE are constrained to say:
" Verify. verify l have touched pitch
and am defiled.'
Certain it is that the writer's of the
Word had these gentlemen in mind
when they said:
- But these speak evil of those things
which they know not: but what they
know naturally as brute beasts, in those
things they corrupt themselves. For
vain man would be wise; though man
be born like wild ass colt. Great men
are not always wise; neither do the aged
understand Judgment. Thus my heart
was grieved. and I was Dricked in my
loins. Having eyes see we not? And
having ears hear We not? OF whom we
be uttered; seeing ye are dull of hear
ing?'
but we will refrain and decline to
engage with them in that kind of YER
bositv."
Coffelt's attorneys also quote poetry
as well as the Scripture on the subject.
and among others they recite the fol-
lowing gem as illustrating their stu
alton:
I had a little doggy who went and bit
a calf.
And though he did it iokfngly 1 really
couldn't laugh;
I cut a little birch rod and took him
down peg
Because you see. the calf he bit was
one that's on my leg"
T. e Dewey, supreme court reporter,
is sometime of a pOet himself and it