The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-04-02
RUFF FILES AN APPEAL
 ON EVE OF HIS TRIAL
ASKS SUPREME COURT TO FREE
 HIM FROM CUSTODY OF ELISOR.


 of Sheriff and Admitted to Bail-De-
 clares He Is Practically in Solitary
 Prepare His Defense-Trial of the
 Alleged "Grafter" Set for To-day.
 San Francisco, April Ion the eve of his trial on the charge of extorting ,OOO from French restaurant keepers, Abraham Ruef to-day asked the su- preme court of California to free him from the custody of Elisor Biggy and order him into the charge of the sher- if, whom Judge Dunne disqualified on the ground of personal interest.
 Ruef filed in the higher court his ap- plication for the writ.
 He sets up that his imprisonment by Elisor Biggy in the former home of Mayor Schmitz, is illegal; that his case was In court for four months prior to March 4, and that on that date, being indisposed, he concluded to visit the Trocadero, a suburban resort, and there recuperate, believing, on the advice of his counsel, that his presence in court was not required, owing to an appeal taken by him to the supreme court to the United States by means of writ of error granted by Superior Judge Hebbard; that he was there arrested without legal right, that EA has applied to Judge Dunne for admittance to bail and has been refused.
 That he is forty-two years of age, has lived in California all his life, has been engaged in the practice of laS for twenty years and has large business in terests at stake; that he is constantly and minutely watched by eight private guards and the court elisor, all of them bearing firearms, all of them employed by Rudolph Spreckles Francis J. Heney and William J. Burns, and all of them paid out of private fund of $10O,O00 guaranteed by Spreckels; that his in dlctment by the grand jury was caus- ed by Spreckels, Heney and Burns; that Spreckels Heney and Judge Dunne are his enemies: that so strict is the es- poinage maintained over him by his guards that it is impossible for him to have privacy, even in conversation with his attorneys, except by whispering. softly.
 That he has complained to Judge Dunne, through his counsel, and been refused more liberty; that persons who are to be witnesses in his defense are not permitted to visit and converse with him in the preparation of his de- fense that he is compelled to sleep in
 i. ,I,, I> j wherein lights are kept burning all night; that he is practically in a state of solitary confinement, not even his attorneys being allowed to visit him ex- cept at the discretion of the elisor; that he is being punished and humiliat- ed before trial, and that he cannot properly prepare his defense under ex- isting conditions of confinement; that all this is being done for the express purpose of hindering and hampering himself and his counsel in the prepara- tion of his defense.
 He asks to be discharged from the custody of the elisor on reasonable ball and to be then ordered into the cus- tody of the sheriff and that, pending the hearing of this petition, an order of the court be made directing the elisor to permit any one person at time to visit and talk to him within reasonable hours, and to permit any person to visit him upon written order of his attorneys and to permit him to consult freely and openly with his at torneys outside of the hearing of Elisor Biggy and his guards.
 The trial of Ruef on the extortion charges is to begin in the superior court before Judge Dunne tomorrow.
 Special Agent Burns to-day announc- cd the receipt of a cable dispatch stat ing that Theodore V. Halsey, indicted on ten counts for the alleged bribing of supervisors in behalf of the Pacific States Telephone company, will start for San Francisco from Manila on April 9 in charge of Captain Trowbridge, chief of the secret service of the Phil ippines.
 MT. Heney told newspaper men aft CT to-day's grand jury session that he had in his possession "one of the note books of Halseys former stenographer and a typewriter transcript of it's con- tents"
 He would not give any information as to t1eir importance to the prosecu- ton.