The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1932-04-07
WHITE Jury IS
DARROW'S aim
IN HONOR CASE
Defense Lawyer Sits Out
HaWaiianS in Honolulu
Death Trial.
COLOR LINES DRAWN
State Battles to ThWart
Clever Schemes of
Famed Attorney.
BY DAN CAMPBELL
United Press Stah Correspondent


HONOLULU, April 7.-Defense
and prosecution fought today over
a jury TO try four Americans &C
cused Of an "honor" murder that
had its origin in the undercurrents
of. racial enmity.
Three score tslesmen parsding
through the jury box we're cross
section of the polyglot peoples who
must decide now between vengeance
for a slain native youth and vindi-
cation for the whites before the bar
of Hawaiian justice.
Quick to grasp the fundamentals
of a battle through which color
lines" inevitably were drawn, Clar-
ence Darrow bent every resource of
the defense to win jury of whites.
With as many peremptory chal-
lenges as the defense, Public Prose-
cutor John Kelly parried Darrow's
ironic thrusts about intelligent
Jurors" and strove just as hard to
seat veniremen of mixed blood.
Jury TO Be Mixed
AS the fourth day of jury choos-
ing began, it appeared panel on
which not more than half the
members are white will try Mrs.
Granville Fortescue, New York So
ciety matron; her Son-in-laW, nerv-
Gus little Lieutenant Thomas H.
Massie, and two sailors, E. j. Lord
and A. o. Jones.
They are charged with shooting
to death Joe Kahahawai Jr., bushy-
haired young Hawaiian giant, after
he and four other islanders had
been tried on charges of attacking
Mrs. Thalia Fortescue MaSsie,
daughter of Mrs. ForteScue and
wife of the navy officer. The attack
jury disagreed.
Sensing that mere peremptory
of mixed-blood talesmen
would get him nowhere as long as
prosecutors continued excusing the
whites, barrow suddenly changed
his tactics to those of q school
master
Seeks to Confuse Talesman
He fired difficult questions at the
Chinese, Japanese, and part Ha-
waiian prospects" in an attempt to
determine their mental fitness to
serve. After one difficult session,
harsh voiced Circuit Judge Charles
S. Davis confessed to doubts that K.
Kealcha, Hawaiian stevedore, had
education and intelligence enough"
At Darrow's barking insistence,
Kealaha had defined reasonable
as zone you can depend upon and
guilty" as cit means it's wrong"
I'VE know down here that a boy
like this has ideas, but can't express
them like learned person" pro-
tested Kelley.
do we have to be mind readers?"
cried barrow impatiently.
Through the first panel of twenty
four, another of fifteen, and the
third of twenty, the endless con-
test Waged. When court convened
today the jury box held Kan Tai
Lee and Cheong Jay, Chinese;
Willie Boyer, German, Honolulus
potato chip king" Edward Goeas
and Francis Rosehill, part
Hawaiian; Charles Akana, Jap
anese; Bernard Stevens, Hawaiian,
and Olaf Sorenson, Stafford Water
house, Douglas Cooke, Charles H.
Strohlin and B. H. Eveleth, whites.
Mrs. FOrtescue Cheerful
Shadows of doubt and worry that
lined the face of Mrs. Fortescue
during the first days of the trial
disappeared today. Appearing in a
light blue silk dress in place of a
wine colored suit, the middle-aged
society matron seemed changed in
temperament as well.
Seated beside her Son-in-law,
Lieutenant MaSsie, and her brother.
Robert Bell, her composure copT
trasted with their downcast demea-
nor.
Mrs. Fortescue has watched with
sidelong glances the jury box, which
changed color with the ease of a
chameleon at almost every chal-
lenge by opposing attorneys.
Bell, with his sister, a member of
the family of Alexander Graham
Bell, inventor of the telephone, was
as nervous as Lieutenant MaSsie,
although the latter controlled his
feelings better. Bell sat biting his
fingers.