Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1953-05-01
Throwing the Book at Reporters

Criminals who have looked upon Washing
ton as good place to beat the rap" have been
given double jolt by parallel actions of United
States Attorney Rover and Police Chief Murray.
Under new policies promulgated by the proSecu-
ton office and the police, "repeaters" no longer
can benefit by prosecution on only one or a
few of multiple charges. Hereafter they are
going to have the book thrown at them, to use
an expression the underworld can understand.
Mr. Rover, aroused by Star disclosures of
shocking laxity in the past in pressing multiple
charges against single defendant has issued
orders that all apparently indictable cases be
presented to the grand jury and that all in
dictmentS be brought into court and prosecuted.
The effect of this order is to end the old
practice of picking for grand jury action two
or three cases out of many submitted by the
police against one defendant and then, some
times, further reducing this number before
bringing an indicted person to trial.
At the same time, Chief Murray has ordered
his men to bring to the attention Of the
United States Attorneys Office all evidence
against multiple misunderstanding to the
prosecutor the responsibility of screening
charges to be presented to the grand jury. The
police in the past have not been as diligent In
this respect as they should have been.
The Drew case illustrates the sort OF police
carelessness that Chief Murray has moved to
eliminate. Although Elmer Drew, self-confessed
housebreaker, had been charged with more than
100 separate cases of burglary, evidence in only
one case was presented to the United States
Attorneys Office and consequently, only one
indictment was asked and granted. "a police
officer merely advised the prosecutor and the
grand jury that Drew was involved in 'other
cases") When the defendant pleaded guilty
to the one charge before Judge Edward M.
rlASle aSA6
placed on probation. It was only after criticism
of the light sentence appeared in the press that
Judge Curran learned Of the mans long list
of other untried charges.
That is not all. After presentation of the
lone case to the grand jury, police officers
proceeded to "close" all other cases against
Drew by the simple process of marking them
&c. j." ordinarily Sgnifying that the cases had
been submitted to the grand jury. This was
defended by the officers as justifable, in view
of the fact that the grand jury division and
the grand jury itself had been notified that
additional cases were pending against the sus-
pect. But instead of working up presentable
evidence in any of these other cases and pre-
senting this evidence for grand jury action, the
remaining cases were dropped. Police officials
say that this practice has grown up as
result of difficulty in obtaining proSecutive CO.
operation IN presenting numerous Charges
against one defendant. There is no doubt that
the police have met with Encouragement in the
past in pressing multiple charges. The policy
announced by Mr.. Rover for presenting all In
dictable cases to the grand jury assures the
Police Department of full cooperation from
now on.
Chief Murray has made two good moves as
q result of lessons learned from the Drew case.
First, he has ordered all precincts and the
Detective Bureau to present to the prosecutor
a statement of facts" in all cases charged to
a defendant-thereby leaving to the prosecutor
full responsibility for throwing out any charges
deemed to be unsupportable in court. Second,
he has instructed all officers not to mark any
case as having gone to the grand jury unless
it was actually presented to the grand jury"
Cases rejected by the prosecutor for presenta-
ton to the grand jury will be marked mo
papers" This new policy will make for more
effective law enforcement all along the line
bad news for those who have been giving Wash
ington a bad reputation in the field of law
enforcement.