The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1921-07-14
!. v. BRINTON
ACQUITTED BY JURY

DismATck, July 9th.-Despite tho
fact that ]. w. Brinton had sworn
that he had signed cooked up minutes
records Of two different press CON
Germs, had gone under an assumed
name in Florida, that his testimony
,, regarding A. c. Townley's activities
in placing funds of the Bank of North
Dakota IN the Scandinavian American
bank OF Fargo was directly contradict-
ed by his, Brinton's letter to Cover
nor Frazier, which was introduced in
his own defense, and which was writ
ten months after Brinton swore Town
ley and othrs were misusing the Bank.
Of North Dakota's funds, and in the
fact Of the fact that the testimony Of
j. r. Waters directly contradicted
Brinton's testimony regarding the re-
deposits Of the Bank of North Dako-
ia in the Scandinavian American, the
jury trying Brinton for perjury before
the House audit investigating COM
mittee last winter brought in ver-
dict Of mot guilty" little after 2
o'clock r. N. today. .-S. ~.
Mr.. Waters in his testimony not
only exeronated Director General
Cathro from all responsibility for the
redeposits in the ndinavian-Ameri-
can, but assumed all responsibility
therefor himself, and it was further
shown that Brinton lied when he
charged that the Director General in
collussiOn with A. C. Townley and At
torney General Lemke had sent funds
down to the Scandinavian American
for the purpose of financing so-called
League subsidiaries, for it was clearly
shown from the records of the bank
that these public funds had been
placed in the Scandinavian American
long before the Bank of North Dakota
opened for business, but still the jury
brought in q verdict of mot guilty.,
and we would not for one minute think
of criticizing the jury or it's verdict.
However, we are reminded of a
story we once heard of an old German
Judge down in Texas. A case had been
tried in his court. The jury retired and
later came in and handed their ver-
dict to the Judge He looked at it,
glanced up and said: "The jury finds
the criminal not guilty."
Prosecuting Attorney J. j. Weeks
held to the law and evidence thruout
the trial and, in his address to the
jury, spoke altogether for about five
hours, but the judges charge to the
jury and the political twist in the tri-
al offset his brilliant work.
Arthur LeSueur, Brinton's lawyer,
made desperate fight to have his eli
ent and succeeded after ten hours of
talk to the jury, wherein he villified
Governor Frazier, Townley, Lemke,
all the League leaders and the League
itself, referring to the League at one
time as "Townley and his crew Of
hungry pirates" talking just as all
the rest talk who 60 over to the en-
emy.
Judge Nuessle gave a very broad
charge to the jury, in one sentence Of
which he said, "You are to determine
or not the defendant was hon
estly mistaken in testifying as he did.
It is not enough to prove the testi-
mony given as charged was false"
We cannot conceive of Brinton being
Honestly Mistaken" in anything and,
as we heard Brinton testifying against
Brinton, we could not get over the
that his testimony thruout
was as false as it could be.
We are not criticizing the jury,
however, as we said, and we have no
whatsoever of criticizing the
court. All We know us that "the Grim
inal il not guilty"