Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1913-09-03

y
fessed to all the details OF the crime
Immediately after his arrest, before
he had retained lawyer. Later
Fred c. Urfer was retained by Hott-
mans relatives to defend him. When
his case came to trial, Urfer simply
saw that everything was done ac-
cording to law and that no. unfair
advantage was taken of his client,
and at the close of the States case
he introduced no evidence, but made
a plea to the jury for mercy, basing
1t upon the theory that Hoffman was
young man, that the Myers woman
was much older and more expert
enced than he, and that she had a
great influence over him and that
therefore he was entitled to some
degree Of pity. The jury found him
and he was sentenced to be hanged.
Joseph Brooks defended Mrs. My
ers, and his every act in her trial was
dignified and in accord with the high
yet he did everything that he could
honorably do in her defense. He OBJ
tanned a change of venue, his exami-
nation Of witnesses penetrated every
avenue that might lead to doubt Of
her guilt, and after her conviction he
appealed her case TO the Supreme
Court, and failing there he went to
the Governor and obtained a COM
mutation of her death sentence to
Imprisonment for life, on the ground
that it would be inhuman to hang a
woman.
Urfer aided justice by producing
his client Hoffman as a witness
against Mrs. Myers, and after her
sentence had been commuted he per-
suadeG the Governor to do the same
for his client.
Here was a case in which two
lawyers did all possible for their
clients, and yet they did tt without
resorting to bubble or chicanery.
In marked contrast to the con-
duct Of those cases was the defense
of John Henry Collins, who murder
ed his father in Topeka. There was
no doubt of his guilt, either, but in
his defense witnesses were put upon
the stand before the close of the
case and stated under oath that they
had been induced to swear falsely.
IN ~ oil ha
efforts to defeat justice in his case
the jury convicted him, but his de-
fense was long a subject of adverse
comment by high-minded lawyers.
In marked contrast to the conduct
Of the Myers and Hoffman case is
that more recent case of Ricord, the
young man who lured the Chamber
lain girl to lonely spot near Shady
Bend, Kan, and tarred her. The
lawyer defending the guilty men in
that affair quibbled and lodged and
threw dust in an effort to blind JUS
tice.
Benjamine Butler, once Governor
OF Massachusetts, set an example to
lawyers that followed after him that
has been condemned by lawyers of
high ideals and initiated by the other
class. He took the position that a
lawyer had a right to take the case
of any person, no matter how guilty,
and to do everything possible within
the law to clear him.
At one time he was retained for
large fee to defend a burglar named
Record, who had been guilty Of
series of amazingly daring burglar
les, and, who after escaping arrest
for long time, was captured in the
very act of taking a key out of a
door. The key had been left in the
keyhole by the house owner during
the daytime, and the evident inten-
ton Of the burglar was to carry away
the key and return at night while
the household was asleep and enter
by the means Of the same key.
The only charge that could be put
against him was one of larceny of the
key as he had not entered the dwell
ing. In his defense Butler pleaded
that a key was part of a door, a door
was part Of a house, a house was
real estate, and therefore no convic-
ton was possible because larceny
covered only the stealing Of personal
property, and the key was certainly
real estate. The prisoner was dis
charged under this plea.
Another time Butler was retained
to defend one Hayward, a noted bur-