The court in return insisted that it was misrepresented and misunderstood. Chief Justice W. H. Beatty essayed the task of writing an explanation of the ruling, that “the man on the street” might understand.
The Chief Justice’s article appeared in the Sacramento Bee of April 29, 1908.[350] Again was the omission from the indictment of the fact that Schmitz was Mayor and Ruef a boss, emphasized.[351] And again, it may be added, did the stupid man on the street fail to understand. In fact, disapproval of the decision continued. Heney attacked it respectfully in tone, but with sharp criticism.[352]
James M. Kerr,[353] in his Cyclopedia Penal Code of California, published in 1908, declared in effect that in the Schmitz decision the Supreme Court of California formulated bad law and advocated bad pleading.
As for Ruef’s position as a political boss, Kerr contended, it was merely a matter of evidence, and not a matter to be pleaded. “The Supreme Court,” concludes the law writer, “seems to lose sight of the fact that the crime of extortion in this State is not confined to persons in office and exercising official influence.”
Dean John H. Wigmore of the Northwestern University School of Law, and author of the standard work, Wigmore on Evidence, in a crushing criticism of the decision and the various documents in the case, charged the Chief Justice with being “plainly inconsistent.”
“The truth is,” said Dean Wigmore, “that the learned Chief Justice in endeavoring to support his decision weaves a logical web and then entangles himself in it.”[354] The moral of the Schmitz decision is, Dean Wigmore concludes, “that our profession must be educated out of such vicious habits of thought.”
The extravagance of the criticism of the decision was more than equaled by the claims made by the opposition to the prosecution, of its effect upon the status of Schmitz and Ruef.
“Schmitz,” said a writer in The Chronicle, “is now thoroughly exonerated of the charge of having squeezed money from Malfanti, the French-restaurant man.”
However this may have been, the practical result of the decision was that both Schmitz and Ruef, with no convictions against them, by furnishing bonds in the bribery cases, were able to walk out of prison.
Schmitz did not return as a prisoner. Ruef enjoyed his liberty until November, 1908.