From Boniface to Bank Burglar; Or, The Price of Persecution / How a Successful Business Man, Through the Miscarriage of Justice, Became a Notorious Bank Looter

by George M. White

Judge Cushion’s plea made a profound impression, it seemed to me, on every one in the court-room; not excluding Judge Doe and the district attorney. There was an intense feeling within me that I would be accorded the privilege for which my counsel had spoken. Judge Doe looked at the district attorney as if to say, “I’ll hear you now,” and Mr. Lane arose and began his short opposition, in a cold, hard voice.

“We have a case against two men,” said he, “and they are before the court—Mark Shinburn and George White. The Walpole Savings-bank burglary was committed by two men, and we are prepared to show by competent testimony that the prisoners at the bar are guilty of the crime with which they are charged. They are jointly indicted, are jointly guilty, and they, according to the law of this state, must be tried together.

“The prisoner White was a poor farmer but a few years ago. It is not possible that he could have honestly accumulated the wealth he now possesses. Where did he get it? He was seen driving about the country with the prisoner Shinburn at the time the plot to rob the Walpole Bank was being concocted. These are the plain facts which the state will prove. There can be no legal decision rendered by the court which will accord the prisoner White a separate trial. I will quote the law.”

District Attorney Lane then read at length from the criminal law of the state, and sat down.

Don H. Woodward, as I have said, was a young attorney, and never had had an opportunity to show his powers. Undoubtedly fired by the injustice which had been meted out to me, he pressed into the fight with an energy that even surprised himself. He spoke of the unfairness of the law that precluded a separate trial for the prisoners, and then proceeded to bitterly arraign the district attorney. Seldom has a prosecutor been compelled to listen to a flaying such as was administered him by this dashing young lawyer. His words were fearless, and at times he charged the district attorney with being influenced by ulterior motives.

“A man was arrested in Saratoga, your honor,” said he, “a business man, a broker. That man is the prisoner, Mr. Mark Shinburn. Bonds were found on him by the police. Two weeks later a man known to the district attorney as James Cummings was apprehended and held in the jail with Shinburn by Mr. Lane. The first knowledge of the whereabouts of the property taken from the Walpole Bank was obtained through the sale of one of the government bonds, and the man who sold the bond was James Cummings. When the detectives arrested him, they found more than five thousand dollars in his possession, the result of the sale of one or more of the stolen bonds. This man Cummings placed bonds in the keeping of my client, Mr. Shinburn, to be sold in the open market. The result of doing a legitimate business for a man who has turned out to be a ‘looter’ of the Walpole Bank, is that my client is before this court accused of the crime of burglary.

“Now, your honor, I wish to show, in plain words, that mighty queer proceedings have been going on since the arrest of this man Cummings, and particularly since a third prisoner, Mr. George White, was brought into the case. The district attorney has placed himself, through certain acts, mighty near where a foul cesspool of conspiracy can be scented. Whether he has readied that condition of his own volition, or whether the powerful political influence of a stockholder of the Walpole Bank has forced him into it, I am not in the position to say. But I do charge that there has come into this case an element that should bring to the cheeks of all honest men the blush of shame.

“Why, your honor, the district attorney brings into this court two men, one a respectable business man and broker of Saratoga, New York, and the other an honorable gentleman known to this community for nearly all his life, and charges them with an infamous crime. He has come here to ask a jury to convict them and your honor to pass sentences that shall put them in state prison, to their everlasting disgrace, the loss of their citizenship, the loss of their fair reputations, and what is more, the district attorney would further tear the bosoms of loving mothers and fathers already grievously afflicted with sorrow. All this District Attorney Lane would do, in face of the fact that he has allowed James Cummings, the actual Walpole burglar, the Walpole stolen bond seller, to go entirely free of prosecution. He dare not deny it, your honor. And why has he done this? Ask Herbert T. Bellows, sitting in this court-room, and perhaps he can tell you and the others why this unheard-of thing has been done. Will Mr. Bellows speak out? No, sir—not he! Neither will the district attorney.

“Why, your honor, the very money found on Cummings was from the sale of one or more of the Walpole bonds. When Detective Golden arrested him, this money was confiscated and turned over to District Attorney Lane. While it may not be proved that it was the fruit of the bond-selling, it can be proved that Cummings sold the stolen bonds. My client, Mr. Shinburn, sold no bonds, neither did Mr. White; but Cummings did. Why was Cummings allowed to slip out of the back door of the jail, your honor? Will the district attorney tell us? What has become of the five thousand and more dollars? Was that money the price of the release of the ‘looter’ of the Walpole Bank? If so, who prompted District Attorney Lane to accept the price, if he did?

“Again, your honor, I wish to call your attention to the fact that the defendants, through their counsel, made persistent efforts to get an early hearing, but it was denied them at the instigation of District Attorney Lane. For six long weeks their pleas were disregarded, and in the meanwhile the district attorney made a dicker with Cummings, the Walpole bank burglar, and in that bargain this Cummings turned over to Mr. Lane more than five thousand dollars. Then the enterprising burglar was set at liberty, to continue his preying upon the public, it being done in a star chamber proceeding, and supplied with money to pay his railroad fare to Rochester, New York. I state all this, your honor, with a view of opening your eyes to what is going on in this case, and with the hope that the prisoners, so infamously charged, may be given the benefit of this warning.