Evening star., 1923-01-25
|KU KLUX HEARING
ENDSAT BASTROP
Defense Attorney Charges
None of Testimony Adduced
Is Legal.
By the Associated Press.

10 ICSdls
By the Associated Press.
BASTROP, La. January 25.-The
states open hearing here into the So
called "Morehouse hooded atrocities -
investigating floggings, deportations.
kidnapings and the death OF two men,
was concluded today, after having
been in progress since January s.
Judge william Barnette, counsel
for DR.. B. M. McKoin, T. JEFF Burnett
and Newt" Gray. identified by nu-
merous witnesses as having been
members of various masked parties,
also issued statement attacking the
legality of the hearing and the testi-
mony given by those summoned to
the stand.
Leon jones' Of Moselle. Miss, the
last and only witness today, told of
having seen two cars with masked
men near Lake la Fourche the night
Watt Daniel and T. F. Richards were
kidnapped near Bastrop Two bodies,
Identified as those of Daniel and
Richards were found floating in the
lake on December %.
Before adjourning of the hearing
Attorney General Coco made a state
RACES in the Parish. charging the
Ku Klux Klan with responsibility for
them.
Judge Barnette's Statement,
Judge Barnette's statement, the first
formal comment from the defense,
follows. in part:
The statute does not provide that
witnesses may be drawn before a
court and grilled and cross-examined
but in order that their dispositions
may be taken.
None of this has been done in this
case; therefore, this whole proceeding.
| in my judgment, is a nullity, and the
testimony adduced cannot be legally
used in any proceedings whatsoever.
1t cannot even be used legally before
a grand jury. 1t would be hearsay.
and any bill of indictment predicated
upon this testimony would be quashed
| by the court.
Attacks CORPUS Deficit"
The corpus deficit has not been es-
tablished to a reasonable certainty, to
say nothing of the rule that il must be
established beyond a reasonable doubt
| Two bodies were found in Lake La
| Fourche, the coroner of the parish, DR.,
| o. NJ. Patterson, a man of unquestion-
/ able integrity and standing both as a
+! citizen and as physician, was not
\ permitted to make any examination OF
them. He never got closer than forty
! feet to the bodies while they were yet
! in the water, and he was told that he
| could not make further examination
7 lxx-bi a 10 athnloQi
seemed to have already been arranged
I with, even prior to the finding of the
| bodies. who were to come and make an
| examination which would disclose great
1 brutality, etc. as to the manner in
| which the bodies found came TO their
! death. And II might be said here that
; their testimony was not at all disap-
F., pointing in this regard.
| There is more than a doubt as TO
the identity of these bodies which is
entertained in the minds of the people
generally Those who heard the tes-
! tlmony without exception entertained
such doubt, and after the pathologists
! had made their full report ron the
matter there was a general unbelief
left upon the minds of all fair minded
people.
| Many witnesses were called to con-
\ meet various and sundry persons with
; the mob that kidnapped and carried
! away Daniel and Richard. and the
! test produced shows every earmark
; of having been worked up by agents
| of the Department of Justice and was
| SO conflicting that it destroyed itself.
! 1t was manifest from the very begin
! ming that the real motive behind the
prosecution was to convict the ku
| Klux Klan in the forum of public
| opinion. without regard as to wheth-
er or not the perpetrators of the
| crime will be uncovered.
without exception there was no
! material or vital point against any
| individual establishment, except by
the most partisan testimony, and tes-
timony which could not stand the
| fire of cross-eXamination or the tes-
timony of character necessary to give
| il verify.
Khan Activities PrObed.
"The activities of the Ku Klux Klan
were gone into with great pain, and
not sustain the charge that they are
responsible for this crime or had
anything to do with it. There are
other activities of minor Importance
| in which immortality and lawlessness
were being practiced, that they per-
haps did take some part, but in no
case is a crime or misdemeanor dis
closed where it is definitely shown
that the hu hlOX Kan look any
part and in no instance has any ac-
tually been shown. except in further
ance of the enforcement of morality
LAS lawyer. having had a good
many years experience in the prac-
tice, and several years experience as
district attorney and as a district
Judge, 7 am of the opinion that this
proceeding, as it has been carried on
is an abuse of the law. l do not mean
that in every instance and with every
witness there was an abuse of the
law or the machinery of the court.
but in number of instances during
this proceeding methods were adopted
the judicial or the lay mind.
Great Harm to state.
"The state of Louisiana. and espe-
cially Morehouse parish, has been
done incalculable harm by the pub
licity of sensational matter, 80 per
cent of which has been without any
substantial foundation whatever; and
from all of the evidence of the hear
ing and the manner by which it was
conducted 1t impresses the reason
able mind that great stage play has
been given the public, with other mo-
tiveS behind 1t rather than the desire
on the part of the governor to really
bring the guilty parties to trial.
II have one other thing to say, and
that is that the persons who have
been named as having been connected
with this kidnapping affair will prove
their unqualified innocence when we