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4 revisions | Lizzy at Apr 23, 2020 09:40 PM | |
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162began suit today against the Lincoln Gas Company for $5,000 damages. Columbus Maggard, whose estate plaintiff represents, was employed as a teamster, and on the occasion of the boiler explosion at the gas works, was getting a load of wood near by. Part of the iron struck and killed him. Plaintiff claims that the engineer, Wm. Dinneen, was incompetent, and the boiler unsafe, rickety, rusty and worn out. The Hutchinson injuction case was continued two weeks. ---------------------------------------- The Sheedy Trial. Immediately following the opening of court this morning, Colonel Philpot counsel for Monday McFarland, arose to a question of personal privilege as relates to the right of his client to hold private interviews with his (the prisoner's) wife and other parties. "We exercised this right last night after the adjournment of court," said Col. Philpot, and it appears to have raised a great roar on the part of counsel for the state. The interview referred to, "remarked the attenuated counsel growing in warmth of expression and animation," was between Mr. Carder, one of our witnesses, and Monday McFarland, one of the defendants, and our client. I know this is permitted in civil cases, and certainly when life is involved the necessity is much gretaer, and of more paramount importance. That the law permits the defendent to have these private interview in the presence, but not in the hearing of the jailor of other authorized official I maintain as a right, which we shall insist upon." "I think," said Judge Field, interrupting, there is no impropriety in according to defendants the privilege of holding private conferences with their own witnesses and counsel, as they have an [undoubted?] right to do all thay can [legitimately?] to assist their own defense. [However?], I think those conferences, if held [???] his wife or others, should take [???] in the court room and during the [?] of court." [?] Frank Hall, for the state, [advised?] the court in the interest of the [??], stated that the interview [??] McFarland and Carder had occured in the court room last evening after [?], and while Judge Fields [??] from the room. This he thought unfair and not permissible under the law. Judge Field, in passing upon the controverted point, stated that it had come to his knowledge that some person had applied at the jail last evening for permission to converse privately with McFarland. The jailor had applied to the court for instructions to guide his action in the matter. The court would therefore direct the jailor to grant no private interviews of the character unless it should occur in the court room. In this latter event the court would determine the matter by an order in each instance and direct the jailor to make application whenever the privilege was desired. In concluding his remarks, Col. Philpott claimed that Counsel Hall and Detective Malone had made an impertinent attempt to overhear the conversation between McFarland and Carder last evening. The colonel grew indignant, and drawing up his five feet six inches to their greatest altitude, declared that such interference would not be tolerated in the future. To give added force to his haughty declaration, the colonel imparted a meat-ax expression to his features, gathered the tails of his coat about him and planted himself with a "dull sickening thud" in his chair, from which he glared ferociously upon opposing counsel. Colonel Lambertson looked down from his Pike's Peak elevation, and humorously smiled, while Mr. Hall cast an imploring glance of appeal to the court. Col. Billingsley concluded the torrent of talk by coyly intimating that counsel for the state had control of the press, and was otherwise holding this sublunary planet by the caudal appendage and playfully swinging it in space. Having squelched the press the stalwart counsel for McFarland smiled complacently and taking his seat, prepared for a controversial tournament with his friend, the enemy, Col. Lambertson. The difficulty heretofore existing of securing jurors on account of opinions previously formed, was supplanted this morning by the appearance of a number of visibly willing candidates, who either desired to secure positions upon the jury for the emolument in sight or for another purpose, which, to say the least, aroused determined hostility and plain apprehension on the part of counsel for the prosecution, who met the emergency, and succeeded in having a number of these suspiciously regarded veniremen rejected. One of the gentlemen, named R. H. Corner, gave Counsel Frank Hall, who was conducting the examination, a long and doubtful struggle, and though Mr. Hall finally succeeded in getting Corner dismissed without exercising a peremptory challenge, Corner said he had read a portion of McFarland's alleged confession and fragments of the evidence given before the coroner's jury. However, he emphatically denied having formed or expressed any opinion, insisting that what he had read had only created an impression and not crystalized into a defined opinon. He acknowledged also that he did not give credence to all the statements contained in McFarland's so-called confession. Counsel Sterns seemed imbued with a profound conviction that Corner would be a desirable juror, and fought hard to secure his return, but Mr. Hall finally trapped him into acknowledging the formation of an opinion, and he was rejected by the court, to which defense offered and was granted an exception. Several other undesirable jurors were gotten rid of when those that followed to the number of ten or twenty acknowledged they had formed opinions and could not sit in the case and accord defendants a fair and impartial trial. Then followed a long and amusing verbal contest between Counsel Stearns and John Sterum, in which the attorney sought to entrap witness into the statement that he had formed and expressed an opinion. The questions were shrewdly put, but as cleverly parried or unsatisfactory answers made. Mr. Strode then rushed to the assistance of his associate and witness was bombarded with interrogatories until he lost their drift and was compelled to resort to the record. Stearns made a heroic effort to catch Sterum napping and induce the court to | 162 |
