The weekly Alaska citizen., 1918-04-29
ERROR
 CAUSED GREAT
 INCONVENIENCE

Yesterday morning at the opening of the district court, when the case of the United States vs. John Fox was called, Assistant District Attor- ney E. Coke Hill, who by special arrangement between District Attor- ney R. F. Roth and the attorney general of the United States, was in complete charge of the trespass case of the United States vs. R. E. Mad docks and John Fox, and the as- sault cases, one against John Fox and one against R. E. Maddocks, ad- dressed the court as follows:
 MT. Hill--If your honor will per. init me to make little statement with regard to this case.
 The Court-You may proceed, MT. Hill.
 MT. Hill am going to move to dismiss the following two cases. I am doing that with the permission of MT. Overgaard. I would like to state just the condition under which it is done so there will be no mis- apprehension. These three cases, the one in which your honor granted the motion for an instructed verdict last night and the next two to be tried. are very intimately connected, and they all arose out of the fact that MT. Maddocks claimed the right to take wood under a free use permit from Section ? and section 35. On Section 2. the Overgaard's had more or less claims; think quartz claim and some placer claims where they were living, and someone told them that Maddocks had no permit on Section and they went to the Land Office to find out, and they were there informed that Mir. Mad docks had no permit on record there. l will go further than that and say that the Land Office stated that to me when I went to investigate, but when their attention was called to it that Mir Roth had been present and had himself helped to get this per init and within the last ten days, since Mir. Brigham returned to Fair banks from Ruby, he made some special Investigations, and last night received wire from Juneau saying that this special permit has been is- sued including ground on Section 2, and through some oversight it had been neglected to be registered here, so the Land Office misinformed MT. Overgaard, and MT. Overgaard pro- ceeded upon the theory that Mad docks had no permit tried to insti- ceeding upon the theory. that Mad docks attempt to go ahead on the ground arose this assault case which would come up today; also out of Overgaard's going to Maddocks to serve him with some notice arose the second assault case, which would come up tomorrow. Now since this permit has come, Mir Overgaard says that he never did claim the wood if Maddocks had that permit and he says, iand vii say in all his talk with me that has been his attitude all the time) that if the permit had been granted, he did not claim but what Maddocks had right to come there and take the wood. Having based his whole situation on wrong premises, without any fault of his, since he went to the proper authori- ties and was told that the permit did not exist, he wishes to withdraw these cases, for those reasons I move to dismiss this assault case No. 7S6 Or. United States vs. John Fox, and No. 7S8 CT. United States vs. F. E. Maddocks.
 And l will say to your honor that this is without any request on my part MT. Overgaard came this morn ing and we talked it over and Mir Overgaard has not been urged to do this by anyone. He does it of his own free will
 The Court-Very well. It all goes to show how much trouble can arise out of little mistake. The motion to dismiss both cases is granted and the cases will be dismissed.
 !. This speedy disposition of these cases cleared the criminal calendar for this term, and the court dis missed the jury to report Monday morning.