The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1907-04-23

proceed 10 try a man for felony
when he is merely charged with a mis-
demeanor should ''bow his head IN
shame then practically all the judges
in the United States in Federal and
| State benches, would have TO share
that bowing, for they have all done
precisely The same thing that Judge
Armstrong did in the Sheets case. 1t
is true that Attorney General Breeden,
weakly lending himself to the use of
the conspirators, has filed sort of a
lsst-ditch, home-run appeal from the
ruling of Judge Armstrong, in this case;
but of course he has no idea OF win
ming the point of appeal, which is made
not at all in good faith, but merely TO
delay the case and hold the matter
over as an electioncering political dodge
for next fall s campaign.
This Sheets case is not legal case
anyway, but political one, which
was sprung last fall for political pur-
poses-this being practically confessed
in the letter which Alexander Nc
Whirter wrote to his home paper IN
Scotland. 1t was revived during the
session Of the Legislature for the pur-
pose of influencing the passage Of a
bill which was designed to take the
police and fire departments of this city
ont OF the hands of the municipality
and turn them over to a State commits
sion. When Chief Sheets was bound
over for trial it was his right to have
his case speedily brought on and set
tied, but 1t was brought in such a way
that the overturn of the information
was imperative. This was by design,
and for the purpose Of throwing the
case back into the hands Of the official
conspirators, so that they might hold
it over for the purpose Of reviving it
next fall when the city campaign comes
on, If tho case had been brought in
legal form, Chief Sheets would have
been tried and acquitted before now.
But that did not suit the purpose Of
the political conspirators, and so the
case was presented to the court in
way that made IL obligatory to have it
thrown out for new start. The result
is that the official conspirators have the
matter in their own hands once more;
they refuse to allow Chief Sheets to
have a trial of his case on its merits,
but desire to use it as political foot
ball merely for campaign purposes.
There are certainly cases enough to
Justify the Oregonian's S complaint that
it is the courts themselves that bring
the law into contempt, without the use
of a case which is nothing more than n
transparently political trick and dodge
as this Sheets case certainly Is, 1t is
used by the oflicial.politjcal conspira-
tors who are robbing the county In
order to set up Il game to punish the
Chief of Police because the American
party was successful at the city cleo
tion of 1905. A political case is one
thinp a judicial or actually criminal
case is quite another. The Sheets case
cannot argue one way or the other in
any real judicial and criminal proce-
dure. Everybody knows aud under
stands that the Chief of Police here has
been guilty of no crime, no offense up-
der the law. He is an able, vigilant,
active Official doing the city good serv~
ice and honestly enforcing the law. To
use his case in the manner as it was
used by the OregonIan was 4 great in
justice to him, and an unwurranted i'm,
putation upon Judge Armstrong; S court,