Los Angeles herald., 1910-02-02
MEXICO AGREES
TO DECIDE COOK
CASE TOMORROW
American Conductor Will
Know Soon if He Is to
Be Given Trial
PROSECUTOR TO ACT
After Long Delay Appea
for Consideration Will
Be Answered
PROSECUTOR TO ACT
Especial to The Herald.


NM EXICO CITY, Feb. 1.-The public
IN prosecutor of the criminal court
AtA here announced today that next
Thursday he would formulate his opin-
CON containing q request for sentence
or acquittal of James A. Cook, Amer
lean conductor, who has been held in
the Jalisco state penitentiary for five
months charged with contributory
negligence in connection with freight
train robberies on the Guadalajara
division of the National railways.
Papers in the Cook case were deliv-
cred to the public prosecutor for re-
view two months ago, after Judge
Palafo of the third criminal court had
spent three months taking evidence.
Cook meanwhile, it is said, has been
unable to receive any information con-
cerning his trial, and has not been
taken to the courtroom since Septem-
Der, when he verified his own testi-
mony given day or two previously.
Cook is confined in the hodover de-
partment of the penitentiary, which al
ways is crowded with several hundred
Mexicans of the lowest type awaiting
action of the courts.
The Guadalajara division of the Or
der of Railway Conductors has been
advised that the grand division of the
order at Cedar Rapids, Iowa. has re-
mitted $500 in gold to liquidate lawyers
fees and printing bills, with the stipu-
lation that none of that sum was to
be used in paying Cooks board.
Cooks name is being carried on the
list of the regular conductors by Of
ficials Of the National Railways, and
he will be entitled to resume service
as a passenger conductor as soon as he
Is released.
-Four Mexican brakemen. arrested a
few days before Cook was, are still i'm
prisoned, but, like their conductor,
have not been sentenced.
Status of Case
There are several features in the
celebrated Cook case which, due to
ignorance of Mexican jurisprudence,
are not generally understood in the
United States. In the first place,
Cook is not being held without trial.
and, second, his legal status is more
that of a witness than that of an in
dicted criminal. Peculiar as such a.
law may appear to people in the United
States, it may be seen from article 272
of the penal code of the state of ia
lisco that 1t is perfectly legal to keep
a suspect imprisoned for a period of
six months, and even longer, with the
proViSo that all confinement exceeding
six months shall ultimately be de-
Quoted from any term of Imprisonment
the court may impose.
The article reads:
1.-THE investigation shall be. carried
on with all the brevity possible, to
the end that, at the latest, it may be
concluded within a period of six
months; but If by inevitable circum-
stances it is prolonged for a greater
time, the judges and tribunals when
pronouncing sentence shall credit the
excess of the punishment to be suf-
fered by the person under sentence"
Conductor Cook was imprisoned on
August 80, 1909, and for this reason
the authorities can hold him only until
February 10 of this year. What the
final disposition of his case will be is
hard to say. 1t is understood that the
state has finished its case and that a
final decision will be arrived at in a
few days. Cook was arrested by the
Mexican authorities on a charge of
implication in series of freight train
robberies. He was refused bail, al
though three foreign merchants in
whose possession some of the stolen
goods were found were admitted to
bond privileges.