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The Editor's Bag might have enabled a notorious criminal, in the end, to escape justice, but for the persistent and determined action of the Attorney-General of the state.
for an Oliver—Ruef and the Court had been met on their own ground, the people smashing ancient precedent to wring justice from their highest judicial
On January 22, the whole country was surprised and shocked by the announce ment through the press, that Abe Ruef, convicted on his own confession and sentenced to the penitentiary three years
tribunal.
before, had been granted a rehearing by the same Supreme Court which had re leased the infamous Schmitz on a techni cality. The rehearing, of course, was the first step necessary to a new trial, and a new trial meant the certain release of Ruef;
Heney was out of the district attorney's oflioe, Johnson was in the Governor's
chair and the most important witnesses were either dead or securely in hiding. indignant public opinion, dum founded at first by the decision, soon
made itself heard in the newspapers, in the legislature and in the Depart ment of Justice. The fact that the action of the court had been delayed until the very last day on which it could be of any use to Ruef, had been noted by Attorney-General Webb, who was watching the case in readiness to act when the proper time came. The Attor
ney-general also knew that of the four justices who concurred in the opinion, one — Henshaw —— was out of the state, out of the jurisdiction of the court on
the day the opinion was handed down. He at once determined to spring upon the Supreme Court of California one of its own reversed technicalities: the prop osition that four justices did not legally concur, that the time limit had now
expired, and that Abe Ruef must go to the penitentiary and enter upon his fourteen years’ sentence. And now the whole country awoke to the unique character of the case—a technicality for a technicality; a Roland
The General Assembly woke up, and a senator at once introduced a resolu
tion asking for a thorough investigation of the proceedings of the Supreme Court in the Ruef case, and there was even some talk of possible impeachment. Meanwhile a demand for an amend ment of the constitution providing for the recall of judges-an unwise but readily. explainable demand —— made itself known with an insistence that could not be misunderstood. Here is the decision of these judges on the Attorney-General's question : "The Court exceeded its authority. It had no right to grant the rehearing in the matter it did. Henshaw was judicially dead on January 22, the day the opinion was rendered." Nothing further could be done to save Ruef — he must go to prison; but the big boodlers—the men who paid Ruef the money and secured franchises
worth multiplied millions — they do not go to prison. Why? If Abe Ruef was bribed, then some one bribed him, and
that some one is just as deserving of punishment as Ruef; can anything be
clearer? FRENCH
SECRET EXAMINAe TIONS
HE French practice of secretly ex amining witnesses finds few de fenders, even in France, placing, as it does, absolute dependence upon the integrity of the judge and his clerk, who
alone hear the testimony of the wit nesses, one after the other. Even in the case of an absolutely honorable justice, there is entirely too much room
for the entrance of personal emotions.
