“I will say this again,” went on Moore, “we will prove the statement that we have made, to wit: that Mr. Heney was an unauthorized person before the Grand Jury by reason of the fact that he was during all that time privately employed by Rudolph Spreckels, who was entertaining a plan to destroy the property of the United Railroads, and to carry out that plan they gave immunity to the Board of Supervisors to carry out their bidding.”
The Chronicle, in its issue of June 7, 1907, in discussing the delaying tactics of the defendants, said:
“It cannot be too often repeated that in connection with the boodle cases there are but two questions which are of importance, and those are, first: Did the accused commit bribery within the meaning of the statute? and secondly, If not, did they commit bribery in such a way that the law cannot reach them? Both these questions will be settled by the evidence in the trials. If the verdict is that the accused committed bribery within the meaning of the statute, they will go to State’s prison. If the evidence shows that they committed bribery so skilfully that it cannot be legally proved, they will not go to the penitentiary, but they will stand disgraced men and unconvicted felons. In either case all that an honest man prizes most highly is at stake, and as all claim to be as innocent as unborn babes, one would expect the band to be tumbling over each other in their eagerness to be first to face a jury and rehabilitate their damaged reputations by a public demonstration of their untarnished character.
“Quite the contrary. So far from their taking this obvious course to secure justification the aid of a shining and costly array of legal talent is invoked to prevent, if it may be possible, any show-down whatever of the evidence in any court. They object to even coming into court and pleading whether they are guilty or not. It is declared that it will be alleged that the purported Grand Jury, which went through the form of indicting them, is an illegal body, with no standing whatever in court, and that, therefore, there is no indictment at all. It will not, apparently, be claimed that the members of the alleged Grand Jury were not discreet citizens, legally competent to serve as Grand Jurors; that they were not regularly appointed as such according to law; that they were not duly sworn into office, or that, having listened to sworn evidence delivered under the forms of law, these reputable citizens, upon that evidence, accuse them of felony. None of these things, it is supposed, will be alleged. What is to be alleged, it is said, is that the number of names from which the Grand Jury was drawn was 113, instead of 125, which, by the way, is promptly denied. What earthly bearing could that have, if it were true, on the guilt or innocence of the men accused of felony? Can it be conceived as possible, even if that were proved, that our laws are drawn so completely in the interest of criminals as to enable men accused of felony to escape trial?
“The personal character and qualifications of the Grand Jurors were fully brought out in the Ruef case. For weeks they were subjected to a grilling which it was a disgrace to our laws to permit. That was not repeated in the Schmitz case. In that the counsel of the accused have seemed to be relying for overturning a conviction on the alleged over-zealousness of the prosecuting officer. Again, what has that to do with the guilt or innocence of the accused, even if it has occurred? A District Attorney is in possession of all the evidence, and if that is such as to arouse his indignation, shall the people thereby be deprived of all remedy? Obvious misconduct of an attorney is more likely to injure the people than the accused. It could hardly have any other influence on the verdict of a jury. If no crimes are to be punished in which there is energetic prosecution, which may occasionally involve expressions which the law discountenances, we may about as well shut up our criminal courts. Almost any attorney may be baited into making uncourteous remarks. Happily the Supreme Court has recently decided that no matter what the District Attorney does, a felon duly convicted upon sufficient evidence shall not thereby be turned loose. And that is as it should be.”
Heney in court made caustic answer to this argument: “After the Supervisors had confessed,” he began, “and sixteen of them had testified that they had been paid $4,000 apiece to vote for the trolley franchise, these defendants thought in their own minds that they were so connected with the crime that Patrick Calhoun, Thornwell Mullally and Tirey L. Ford each made a public explanation in the press, denying that they had bribed a city official. A crime had been committed, and the first question to be asked was, Who had the motive? The Supervisors had testified that they received the money from Gallagher, and Gallagher had testified that he received it from Ruef. Did Abraham Ruef own the trolley lines? The question arose as to who had the motive. Ford and Mullally came to me personally and told me they had not bribed a city official. Wasn’t that an explanation? Will it not be an explanation when these defendants are put on trial that they will say it was an attorney’s fee? If, under these circumstances, the Grand Jury cannot call the officers of the company to learn who authorized the giving of the bribe money, what would an investigation be worth? If we had not called them, then you would have heard the other cry, that this was a conspiracy to destroy the good name of Patrick Calhoun.
“If it had been a poor, ignorant man, or a helpless woman—if the Grand Jury had dragged her from the jail and compelled her to testify against herself, and she had not known what her constitutional right was, it would have been a different picture. But these four gentlemen are learned in the law. One of them had been Attorney-General of this State, another had been his assistant in that office for four years. Mullally is an attorney and Patrick Calhoun is an attorney whose mind is equal to that of any man’s in California.
“Advised of their rights! Why, they came in there on a subpoena which General Ford has declared in his own affidavit was faulty and ineffective. They came on a defective process, which they knew to be defective. They refused to be sworn, and they were not sworn, and they left the Grand Jury room without having answered a question, for the purpose of coming solemnly here to get these indictments set aside on the grounds that their constitutional rights have been invaded. That’s trifling with the law. Laws weren’t made to juggle with. Laws were made for the protection of the innocent.