Alexander E. Wagstaff
Published: 2013-09
Total Pages: 128
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1892 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER L. David Neagle--Taken Under Writ Of Habeas Corpus To San Francisco--The Questionable Transfer Done Under Cover Of Darkness And In Secrecy--Released Without A Trial--An Ingenious Document. The Federal authorities having assumed the responsibility of the death of Judge Terry, his slayer was to be taken care of by that arm of the service, and means must be provided to release him from his imprisonment at Stockton. While there was no danger of any undue or violent proceedings against him, or any thought of his life being in danger, the fact that he had committed an act which was a crime against the laws of the State of California, and that he was amenable to its courts of justice, must be evaded in order to consummate the travesty on justice and set the prisoner free. He was, for the time being, the servant of the United States and the paid agent of the department of justice, and although that high tribunal should be held above suspicion in its every act, there was something which caused it to concoct and execute a scheme, worthy only of the actions of the celebrated "Council of Ten," in the dispensation of justice. When the highest judicial tribunal in the land has to resort to scheming, and to carry out its ( 454 ) schemes in secret and the darkness which protects the burglar and highwayman, the natural and only correct inference is that justice must be thwarted and crime covered up. The spectacle of a special train under cover of darkness and under orders from the United States Circuit Court, stealing its way across the plains, in an enlightened, free, and sovereign State, to take from a county prison a man who, although he had killed his fellow-man, was in no danger of punishment, has all the evidences of a desire to usurp the...