Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-11-02
Brother of Accused Charges
Assistant District Attorney
Went Beyond Duty"
HOLDS BULLET TESTS
UNRELIABLE IN COURT
Calls on People Of D. c. to Urge
Reopening Case of Convicted
Colored Man.

Herbert Campbell, with q final chapter
on the reliability Of ballistics remaining
incomplete.
Col. Calvin II. Goddard of North
western University, who was assigned to
write the climatic chapter. reluctantly
relinquished the half-finished Job yes.
terday when the District attorneys of
nee refused to hold the record open for
the belated pages.
Assistant United States Attorney VIII
liam H. Collins, whose prosecution Of
Campbell on q charge of numbering
Mary Baker ended in the defendantS
exoneration, refused to cooperate with
Goddard in plan to finish the ballistic
assignment in Chicago, and abandon
ment of the undertaking resulted.
AS Col. Goddard was leaving late yes
terday. Frank G. Campbell, brother Of
the freed realty dealer, took final fling
at ballistic experts who claim their
| science Is exact" and at the assistant
District attorney who brought his
brother to trial
Scores Prosecutor.
The real estate mans brother held
out two lessons to be learned from the
Campbell murder case first, that
ballistics Is unreliable in trials for
| capital offenSes. and. second, that q
| prosecutor may become an instrument
OF oppression and justice rather than
! the contrary"
Incidentally, the brother referred to
recent conviction of colored man
for murder on evidence repeatedly
''circumstantial and largely based upon
ballistic testimony" and called on 'the
people Of the District of Columbia" 70
reopen the case for an investigation Of
the "sufnciency Of the evidence
Before leaving for Chicago Col Cod
dard turned over to Prosecutor Collins
| the 10 test bullets and five revolycrs
| over which he had been working at the
Bureau of Standards. He reiterated his
regret at Collins refusal to consent 70
consummation Of the ballistic expert
ment begun during the Campbell trial,
and repeated his offer to conduct q
similar test lat any time" TO prove the
infallibility Of bullet identification. =
Collins Disappr0ves.
In . formal statement yesterday aft
! ernoon, Goddard said that Collins had
disapproved his request for permission
to appeal direct to Justice Jesse @.
Adkins. presiding in Criminal Division
! 2, for authority to finish the studies Of
the exhibits In his Chicago laboratory.
The prosecutor explained that the
continuation Of the tests was that the
records in the Campbell case are -
closed book" and that mo good purs
pose would be served" by the tests now.
Plans for a meeting last night of the
Veterans of Foreign Wars, at which Ale
bert H. Hamilton, defense criminologisS
was to be introduced by Herbert Camp
bell for the pupose of discussing bali
! listtcs, failed to materialize. It was I'M
derstood the meeting may be held to-
morrow night or Tuesday night. '
Trial Will Cost $4,000.
/ Frank Campbell said last night that
I the trial will cost his brother between
$500 and $1,000, in addition to his
sorrow. worry and time"
1T seems to me that there are two
/ outstanding lessons to be learned from
the Campbell murder case" he said in
statement issued yesterday. The
first is that ballistics is far from being
| such an exact science as to justify the
| sentencing to death Of human beings
on the strength of 1t, and the second II
that prosecuting ofncials sometimes
have a very erroneous conception Of
what is required of them under what
they term their duty
with respect to the question Of
where the duty of o prosecuting attor-
ney lies. we had in the Campbell case
a situation where the prosecuting ON
| Gals had before them before the &C
cuSed was indicted q complete alibt
based upon written records that could
not possibly have been changed and
which so completely establish the pres
ence of Herbert Campbell in his own
home at the time of the attack on Miss
Baker as to make 1t a certainty that he
could not possibly have been guilty. Yet
with this positive direct evidence in
hand they proceeded to require the de-
PENDANT Campbell to place himself in
jeopardy and to go to the expense and
the humiliation of q murder trial mere
! ly because they had certain circumstan-
tial evidence In hand.
Goes Beyond Range Of Duty.
Prosecuting officials become prose-
cutting oficials because they have ma
| tive ability in the way of eloquence, q
convincing manner of speech and q
knowledge Of the law. When they stand
before a jury these native advantages
are buttressed and enhanced by the
halo which goes with representative
| of the law. For such o man to stand
before a jury Of laymen, having little
knowledge of the law and urge the con-
viction Of man whom he knows to be
! innocent, merely because he thinks
that he can convict upon the circun-
beyond the range of duty.
IF the newspapers are correct, man
was recently indicted here in the Dis
trict of Columbia where the evidence
was wholly circumstantial and largely
based upon ballistic testimony. In
that case, according to the newspapers,
the defendant, an ignorant colored
man, was confronted with the ballistic
evidence and such other circumstantial
evidence as had been accumulated. The
officers impressed upon him the GER
tainty of conviction, whereupon he Is
said to have remarked, Well, reckon
you have got enough to convict me and
I had better take q 10 spot
This, it seems, would make 1t clear
that he had been led to believe that
if he would plead guilty he would get
of with a 10-year sentence. When
he went to trial the remark quoted
above was, am informed by the news
paper men, construed to be equivalent
to a confession and he was sentenced
to imprisonment for life.
IF the facts are as stated above, and
If his remark, made merely with the
thought that he would rather take
sentence of 10 years than to risk cleo
trocution, was In fact twisted by the
prosecution into the equivalent of
confession beforesa Jury Of, we know not
what caliber, then the people of the
District of Columbia should not rest
until that case is reopened and an In
vestigation made of the sufficiency Of
the evidence upon which this man has
been sentenced to spend the rest of his
natural life In q penitentiary"