Arizona republican., 1917-06-23
ONE DEFENDANT
 ON[Y |S HELD
 TOFACE TRIAL
Case Against J. J. Otero Is Dismissed, but Charles Korrick Is Held for Trial in Superior Court

The first phase of the case against Charles Korrick and J. J. Otero accused by Secretary French of the Federation of Labor of twice signing their names Go referendum petitions against the Women's minimum wage bill was ended in Justice Wheeers court yesterday. Mir Korrick was held for trial in su perior court. On the motion of County Attorney Laney the case against MT OterO was dismissed, the county attor- ney stating that it seemed evident that both signatures of this defendant had not been written by the same person
 The testimony for the state had been presented at a previous session of the court. IL was of a formal character consisting of the identification of the genuine signature of MT. Korrick by MT Oberfelder of the National Bank of Arizona and of the offering of proof that the name appeared twice on ref crendum petitions.
 Mir Korrick was represented by Leon s. Jacobs of Bullard X Jacobs and County Attorney Laney and Assistant Harry Johnson appeared for the state. The audience for the most part was made up of persons active in the cause
 
 offered was of an expert character, one of the witnesses. P. T. Slayback, audi tor for the Arizona Hercules company and for a long time engaged in banking business, qualifying as an expert.
 The first witness was James Reid, Jr. of the Central bank. He was shown he various exhibits, consisting of the signatures as they appeared on the two petitions. charged photographic copies uf them and admitted signatures of MT kOrrick on other documents. There ygas beside a large stock of cancelled checks issued by Mir. Korrick but they were not brought into requisition-
 Ar Reid after examining the photo graphic copies gave it as his opinion hat the two signatures were not made by the same person and then, analyz- ing and comparing them, he pointed out the differences between the cOrre- spending letters of each. On cross-eX- animation he admitted that differences frequently and generally occurred in signatures written by the same person, though he said that there was an all most indefinable something in sigma ture by which it might be recognized as the genuine
 He was asked if there would not be difference such as appeared in these two signatures if they had been written by the same persons under differen, conditions as to place or as to the state of the writer Mr. Jacobs objected to the question on the ground that there was no evidence as to the conditions under which either of the signatures was made. The objection was over ruled. Objection was also made in vain to the request of the county at tOrneV of the witness to write his name twice for purposes of comparison.
 The next witness was MT. 'Slayback who unhesitatingly stated that the name of Mir. Korrick on the two peti tions had not been written twice by the same person. He was familiar with the signature of MT. KOrrick and had seen it probably d thousand times on bank checks. He forestal. ed much of the cross examination by some interesting remarks on the subject of identifica- ton of hand writing. Identification could be made he said letter by letter; no two signatures could be precisely alike but there was in every signature certain characteristics which could not well be copied, at least so as to pass an expert examination of it. He then pointed out certain characteristics of Mr KOrrick's signature which he said did not appear in exhibit B.
 Other witnesses were George Byers of the Phoenix National bank, J. J. Fa- gan of the Central bank and Sylvan c. Gang of the National Bank of Arizona All of them, though MT. Byers had been originally summoned by the state, eX pressed the belief that Mir Korrick had not written both names. MT. Gang said that the signature of MT. KOrrics was an easy one to counterfeit. As nt Of thT0T1O which thousands of MT Korrick's g checks passed. he said he had ire duently practiced on the signatures and once he had succeeded to such an eX- tent that in the way of joke he af- fixed it to a check, ran it through the bank and deceived MT. Korrick himselr.
 The last witness was MT. Korrick. He denied that he had signed two peti- tiOns. He was asked if he had not admitted that he had signed two, one admission being made to an officer of the secretary of state and the other in an interview in The Republican. Mr. Korrick replied that he had made such admissions at time when he supposed that he might have signed both peti- tions. having forgotten that he had signed the first one, He had first learned by q telephone message from Secretary Osborn that his name ap- peared twice.s He asked MT. Osborn to disregard one of the signatures and that had been done. MT. Otero, whose name also appeared twice went to the of flee of the secretary and saw the sig ratures and returning told the witness that one of them in each case was a forgery 1t was previous to learning that and when he supposed that he might have forgotten. he made the statements to MT. Osborn and to The Republican. Until then he had not suspected forgery. Having at last seen the two signatures he knew that one of them had not been made by him.
 Tn the argument, the county attor- ney stated that if MT. KOrrick had avowed no intent to violate the law, that he had forgotten that he had all ready signed the referendum petition. that might be regarded as a good de- fense In reply MT. Jacobs said that a better defense was that he had not violated the law and that he had not signed more than one referendum peti- tion.
 After the announcement by the court of his ruling in the case of Mir. Korrick County Attorney Laney after a confer ence with Mir French the complaining