The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-04-10

sympathy with the effort to secure d
conviction.
1t will be a baptism of fire for City
Attorney Dreaming. He VIII have to go
into the trial of this vast array of cases
without much previous experience IN
this line of work, and he will be op-
posed by lawyers who have made II
their business for years to defend JOINT
lists. The attorneys for the joint keepers
know every crook and turn in the law,
and they are like to lead Mr.. Dreaming
a merry chase Mr.. Dreaming realizes
that he is up gainst a hard proposition,
but he is preparing to put up fight
1T is very hard to do much with
such q large number of cases as TINS,
said Mr. Dreaming today. Some of the
arrests were made a long time ago; the
witnesses have become scattered; there
has been so much time elapsed that they
have forgotten what they saw at the
time the arrests were made. It will be
hard to secure any convictions. hope
that we can at least get the costs out
of these cases"
There has been some talk that the
iointists might be willing to pool their
cases and agree to pay all the costs,
provided the cases would be dismissed.
Some of them are confident of acquittal,
but there are a few strong cases, and
it might be a profitable move for the
whisky men to avoid these strong cases
by paying all the costs The costs in
these LUU cases VIII QGuDEieES amount
to at least $4,000.
Charles F. Spencer, the retiring city
attorney, said today: It have explained
as far as 1 can the situation to Mr..
Dreaming, and I suppose that he viii
make an effort TO convict these people.
This large number Of cases has accum-
ulated because there have been few
liquor eases tried during the last three
terms of court Last summer the jury
was illegally drawn, and after 1 had
convicted a few of the jointists, the
attorneys for that, side challenged the
jury, and that put an end to further
work. In the SEPTEMBER term, Judge
Hazen was trying to clean up his docket
before leaving office, and would not
hear any liquor cases. The January
term was Judge Dana's first term. He
was crowded with work, and so was I;
the legislature was in session, and we
decided to lay over the cases. Up to
that time, there We're $50 liquor cases
on the docket, and since then I am IN
formed by Mr.. Dreaming that the new
appeals run the total up to over 200"
In most Of these cases there is a very
slim show for conviction. The evidence
was none too strong when it was fresh,
and now that it has grown stale, con
victiOn is dOubly difficult.
Mr.. Spencer thinks that it is not good
policy to compromise cases of this sort.
He said:
I suppose I will go down in history
as The Great Dismisser' because of the
number of whisky cases have dis
missed I simply dismissed cases in
which there was no evidence and no
chance of conviction, in order to save
costs for the city. I have not enter
tanned propositions to compromise such
cases. because it was my idea that the
man was either guilty or not guilty. If
guilty, it was our duty to prove it: If
not guilty, he should not be required to
put I'D money as a compromise
This viii be the hardest part of CITY
Attorney Drenning's work for a while
He viii have to keep busy to maintain
the pace. His initiation into the mys-
teries Of city prosecutor in liquor cases
will take place on April - when the
Hodgins and KaczynsAi cases which
have been set, viii come up for hearing.