The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-08-06

of the witness is for the jury. ana it IS error to charge that if they believe the evidence they must find the defendant guilty They should believe the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.
 The fact that MT. Turner yielded. uiti- mateIv. under peculiar and extraordinary | conditions and agreed to enter mild confession of technical guilt. does not in | the least affect my position, or in any wise weaken the principle involved. | namely. ..the free and unhampered right of trial by jury" But. since The Mont romery Advertiser says: To-day Turner's attorney. fin open court, admitted. upon | the law, as the court declared It. that Turner, on the undisputed facts, was guilty, and he pleaded guilty and received
 mercifui sentence. This Is the most other critics of Judge Jones in this mat l ter"
 Turner's Mother Dies from Worry Over Trial.
 sMontgomery, July 20.-(Special.)- .)-There | is a pathetically sad story connected with the ending of the Turner peonage trial | in the Federal Court this evening of the death of the venerable mother of Mir. \ Turner. Tn feeble health, the dear old mother has been greatly disturbed by the recent trials of her son. and when he left l her bedside this morning to come to court | 'tis said that she pleaded with him to agree to the proposition of the special agent of the Government who had been | for two days beseeching Turner to plead guilty; that unless he should enter such a plea, the Government would not stop it's case until 1t had made of him prac- tical bankrupt. Turner stoutly maintain- cd his innocence and steadfastly refused to agree to enter a plea of guilty. But the once stout heart gave In this morning when both wife and mother entered their pleac. We know you are innocent. they told the departing son and husband, but we have been restless, tossing upon our pillows at night since for the first time in your fife, you were called into the courts on this miserable charge. But We cannot stand your absence. Enter plea of guilty, if needs be. and pay up the fine and return to us."
 Turner's mother died on the day he agreed to pay a fine. Turner was ar raigned before a jury of his peers. Act ing under their oaths. they failed to fnd a verdict Ten of them. as is well known here, believed Turner not guilty, while only two stood for conviction. Turner had heard the Federal Judge deliver his red remarks to the jury. The language had gone forth that he was guilty, not from the jury, but from the judge. Was Turner's rights in any way hampered by this impression? Was his case already prejudiced in the mind of others who
 would come to try him? Did he feel like
 he could get what the Constitution had
 guaranteed him, a fair and impartial
 trial? Turner's counsel informed me that
 the suggestion that another judge would
 be asked to try Turner was never heard
 of until Turner agreed to the terms of-
 fered by the Government Let Mir. Tur-
 ner himself be heard. He says that the
 secret detective of the Government, Mir.
 Dickey, had been for two days worrying
 him about pleading guilty, saying, 'If
 you will plead guilty in this case, will guarantee that the other cases against
 you, the cases against your son and your
 foreman, will be nol pressed, and your
 fine shall not be over s250" Whereupon
 Turner says he told him, 'T am not
 guilty and am not going to plead guilty
 to something I am not guilty of." That
 then Dickey said. "All right, we've got 1t
 in for you, then; If you won't plead guilty
 we will keep trying you: we may not convict you. but when we get through
 with you, you won't have a cent to your
 name." Turner had mortgaged his home
 for $500 and had spent nearly 5000 of
 this on the former trial. he informed me. The judge having said that he was guilty,
 
 threats of Dickey to bankrupt him, the lack of money. all conspired to force him to accept the proposition of Detective Dickey, which Mir. Turner says was car ried out by the court. That the agree
 ment was that he was to pay $250 and not $, 900.
 Who authorized Dickey to go to Turner as he did?
 Is 1t the policy of our Government to St.. the law presumes him to be innocent un- til he is convicted? Does our Govern
 ment delight to reduce her citizens to a
 state of pauperism because he is charged
 with crime and maintains that he is in- nocent?
 General Gordon is a great and good man. l am sure that he does not understand the
 facts in this case. I am sorry that Re
 suffered himself used in the manner he
 did. I do not know who inspired his iet-
 ter, but I suspect who did it. Of one
 thing. I am quite positive however-the
 veterans of Alabama endorse the right of
 trial by jury.
 One of my critics declares that the jury
 had already announced a mistrial, and
 that, therefore. Judge Jones's language
 was not calculated to coerce a verdict.
 wish to reiterate my former statement
 that 1t was two or three days before tho JOfy made mlStrlai that the Judge de-
 livered that cruel, caustic charge. Judge Jones. evidently acting under the impression that the jury would not
 convict Turner, arraigns them at the bar of his own mind, and informs them that in the Court of God Almighty they will
 stand convicted of perjury should they
 fail to convict. Who constituted the Fed
 eral Judge the oracle of the Almighty to tell a sworn jury of American citizens, of Alabama citizens. how they would ap- pear in the courts of Divinity? Whence comes the inspiration that caused him
 to see the unimpeachable manhood of those Alabama jurors reflected in the mir
 TOT of disgrace, should they fail to find a,verdict to his liking? By what omnipo- tence of instinct could he read at the bar of their conscience the base reason for their failure to see as he saw? Upon that he Is grown so great?'
 In the name of all that Is sacred to an American citizen, I ask if any man, in this land of liberty, ever heard just such charge fall from the lips of a presid- ing judge?
 Members of the City Council of Mont gomery were fined for contempt by Judge John Bruce. August 8, 1878, for refusing or failing to pay judgment of one Hart against the city of Montgomery.
 Members of the Council wrote a protest in which appears the following:
 Where men act conscientiously under advice of counsel and guilty intent is necessary to constitute the offense, what would otherwise be perjury even, is no