Daily independent. [volume] (Elko, Nev.) 188?-1915, 1912-01-13
ISN'T IT AWFUL, MABEL

that Justice Of the Peace A. B.
Gray had turned Fred Hess, the
notorious Red House bandit and
outlaw loose after full considera-
ton Of the evidence adduced at
his preliminary examination, which
lasted two or three days. Don't
that send shiver cJursinR up and
down your spinal column, Mabel?
How Judge Gray could arrive at
any such conclusion under the
published reports of what took
place, at the Red House on that
eventful night is. past the under
standing of ordinary mortals.
Is it another deliberate attempt of
sworn officer of the law to make
Elko county notorious as a safe
harbor for criminals, or is it
the act of an officer who does not
know evidence from wild and
woolly reports? In either case, we
believe that Judge Gray should be
brought up with short turn and
his commission as justice of the
peace revoked. What right has
he to sit in judgement on a case,
where notorious bandit and out
law shoots up house at night,
and drive three or four people
including a woman, half dressed
from warm and comfortable lodg-
ings out into the rigors of an Elko
county winter with the mercury
away down below the freezing
point and still going down, whom
the officers hunt for many weary
days through the mountains with
the mercury still crawling down,
and who is finally captured at an
Indian camp with ears, hands,
toes. fingers, nose and feet frozen
stiff and dropping off, and, after
putting the county to an expense
of ten good American dollars for
his fees in the case, turns the
notorious bandit and outlaw loose
to prey upon society again.? -.
Really. Mabel, it is AWFUL.
Perhaps reason for Judge
Grays outrageous judgement in
this case may be found in the fact
that he is very much interested
in the Deeth creamery, that he
visited Deeth while he had this
famous case under consideration,
and run the evidence through the
creamery separator, thus separat-
ing the false from the true, and
had so little truth left of the states
case that he was compelled to say
to Fred Hess. the notorious and
badly frozen bandit and outlaw, 20
back to the Indian camp, gather
up your frozen ears, nose, toes,
fingers hands and feet and sin no
more against the lave of this
great and glorious Commonwealt I'll.
This is Sheriff Harris version of
Judge Gray's outrageous act in
farming this bloodthirsyt, frozen
criminal loose to shoot up another
house in the dead OF night. The
shreiff's version may satisfy I'M
thinking people, but it will fall
'ar short of satisfying the minds
of the great mass of lawabiding
citizens of this county who believe
n the strict inforcemet of the
law against all criminals, whether
they be frzeen bandits, captured
by the officers after weary miles
of chase through the mountains,
without food rest or water for
week or more with the mercury
over ~ below zero and still going
down, according to the Reno dis
patch to the Goldfeld Tribune and
the press dispatches sent from
Elko, or whether they be Just the
common, ordinary kind of every
day violators Of the law. Z
But seriously now. We do not
know enough about the facts to
venture an opinion upon the
justice of Judge Gray's decision in
the case of the State against Fred
Hess. But he heard the Ievidence,
weighed it and discharged Hess
from custody. We naturally pre-
sumo he did his full duty without