But in spite of the backwardness of certain of its witnesses, the prosecution succeeded in getting its case before the jury. The jury found Ruef guilty as charged. He was sentenced to fourteen years’ penal servitude at San Quentin prison.
CHAPTER XXVI.
The Calhoun Trial.
The trial of Patrick Calhoun for offering a bribe to Supervisor Fred Nicholas began immediately after the holidays, following the Ruef trials. The trial brought into play all the machinery of the opposition at its worst to the prosecution. At all points the defense was carried on on a larger scale than at the former trials. There were more and better lawyers employed by the defendant; there were more thugs in evidence in the courtroom; there was greater activity on the part of the detectives, spies and agents engaged to meet the efforts of the men working under Detective Burns.
Due largely to the activity of this army of opposition to the prosecution, the weakness of the methods of enforcing the criminal law was emphasized even more than at the other trials, and the defects shown up more glaringly.
To secure a jury to try Ruef, for example, 1450 talesmen were called. This was regarded as a record. But before a jury had been secured to try Calhoun 2370 veniremen had been called into court, and no less than 922 examined. Thus, for every juror who sat at the Calhoun trial, 197 talesmen were called, and seventy-seven were questioned by the attorneys.
The estimated number of words contained in the transcript of the examination of these talesmen was in millions. To conduct this examination three months were required. The securing of a jury to try Ruef occupied the time of the court for two months only. But it must be noted that the securing of the Calhoun and the Ruef juries occupied five months—to try charges contained in two indictments, whereas in all the graft cases 160 indictments had been brought.
The defendants who preceded Calhoun to trial had an army of attorneys to represent them. But Calhoun’s line of legal representatives was quite double that of any of his fellow graft defendants who had been caught in the prosecution drag-net.
Prominent in Mr. Calhoun’s defense appeared A. A. Moore, Stanley Moore, Lewis F. Byington, Earl Rogers, J. J. Barrett and Alexander King, supported by the giant of the California bar, Garret McEnerney. That the master mind of Garret McEnerney was directing many of the graft defense cases had been intimated from time to time, but there is no question about McEnerney’s part in the defense of Calhoun.