The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-06-14

IllJ- 4clC.
we ask your Honors to hold the pris-
loner to answer to this bill Of indictment
for murder to the end that he may have
Il full and fair and impartial hearing be
fore a properly constituted tribunal to
determine his guilt or innocence that in
his case, the prophecy of King Lear may
mot be fulfilled:
Through tattered clothes, small vices do
appear
Robes and furred gowns hide all
Plate sin with gold
And the strong lance Of justice hurtless
breaks.
Arm it with rags, and a pigmys straw
doth piece it."
COL. ARGo FOR PETITIONER.
lIf Your Honor Pleases:
have listened attentively to the argu-
Iments of the gentlemen who represent the
State, and especially when they articulate
lily set forth the grounds upon which they
resist our application for bail, and I am
free to say to your Honors, that in a Sc
rious matter such as the pending proceed
ling is, l have never in my life, in all my
Experiences of more than thirty years
practice before courts, heard reasons or
grounds so trivial, and unwarranted as
signed as a basis for their resistance 50
beside the question that is presented to
Iyour hOnors for determination in order to
correct solution of the main question pre-
scented, as have been announced by the
gentlemen who have made speeches for the
prosecution in this case, IN case IN Whlch
the liberty of a citizen is concerned, eltl-
zen Of no ordinary standing IN the COM
=
munity-yet the petitioners rank would
not weigh with your Honors, OF course,
because, as Cicero said In the defense OF
| Milo .The laws are made for the inferior
as well as the superior" But where the
liberty Of a citizen is concerned, where ne
comes before two judges Of the supreme
tribunal of the state, and insists that
under the law as applied to the facts III
this case the deprivation of his personal
power of locomotion, the restraint of ms
liberty is unlawful, and asks you to IN
quire into it calmly, gravely, freely upon
facts adduced from the mouths of re-
sponsible witnesses, in accordance with the
express and positive provisions of our
law and to apply the law as you shall
find it. not only in our State, but in other
enlightened tribunals of the American
Union. They come into this court and
y
lshould not obtain his liberty in accordance
with the demand Of the law and of the
provisions of the act Of habeas corpus.
that we are to have a court in six weeks
and he can swelter in a rats den among
negroes and common criminals In order to
await the action of a petty jury. A mo
ments detention, sirs, to a free American
citizen is a torture, it is a punishment That
lcannot be inflicted without degradation
THAT he will feel to his dying day, no mat
ter how long he may live, Incarcerated
behind brick walls and in an iron CELL
Iamong the verrnin and rats and negroes,
vet they say that as a matter OF eXpe-
ldiencv your Honors should still keep him
from being allowed his freedom. Expe-
ldiencyi The law knows no expectancy
Except as to trifling questions of property.
So far as the right of the citizen Of the
State is concerned; so far as his rights
(which concern his personal liberty and the
freedom Of his individual person and his
life are involved. the law knows no ex-
Ipediency He is to be detained for SIX
llong weeks in a hot cell simply because it
lis not expedient to turn him out now.
THAT is one of the reasons that they as
lsign. 1--WE viii have court pretty soon +"
Ithey say "a jury viii be empannelled .
lthey say. THEY can pass upon the
Icharge," they say Because the grand
Jury has brought in true bill against
1.-THE defendant where he was not awarded
Ia hearing to show how the matter was.
THE wisdom of our ancestors and the love
Iof the Anglo Saxon, the Germanic races,
flor personal liberty won for us centuries
Iago the habeas corpus act, under which
1--we are now proceeding Whatever be the
lcause of arrest, whatsoever be the charge,
proceeding from source high OF low, an
individual or association of individuals,
under our law the accused person can ap-
Ipeal to judicial officer learned in the
law to find the facts and say whether he
lshalI be degraded by further imprison-
Iment No question of expediency viii de-
ter the court in passing upon that ques-
ltion
This writ was issued the 18th day OF
MAY. The gentlemen Were notified OF IT..
lThey were given from the 18th day of
May to the 21st to prepare their case and
lproduce their proof and say whether we
lwere entitled to have Mr.. Haywood re-
lleased on bail Immediately they busted
themselves. Your Honors continued the
case until the 28th on account Of necessary
engagements which called your Honors'
Iattention. So they had from the 18th to
the 2Sth to produce their evidence, to
marshal their forces and to show to your
IHonors, if they could show it, that we
Iare not entitled to the enlargement which
we claim. They were not taken by sur
lprise. They have had every opportunity
las to time, as to power, to produce every
lparticle of evidence that exists against the
defendant, and no doubt they have done
lit, and yet, they say that this defendant
should lie in jail, after he has acted thus
liberally in giving them ample time, more
than two months longer because 1t IS in
lexpedient to give him bail. 1T may af-
feet public opinion" they say. Brother
attorneys went so far as to assert that the
Invocation of this writ was prostitution
Iof the writ and that it was intended to
mould opinion adversely to the State 1t
lis intended to mould public opinion, but
upon the testimony of witnesses whom
Ithey cannot assault 1t is intended to dis
labuse public opinion of that unjust inn
Ipression that has been made upon it by
I+ba apaunins Of This dnfapdapf xttbor fI,or,