THE SEIZURE OF SPIES’ PAPERS.
Proceeding to the question of “unreasonable search and seizure” in Spies’ office, he said it did not strike him as being any part of this case. He was not here to offer any apologies for his own conduct. He then recited at some length the circumstances of the bomb-throwing in the Haymarket, the search of the Arbeiter Zeitung office, the prying open of Spies’ desk, the finding of dynamite and letters there, the breaking open of Lingg’s domicile, and the finding in his trunk of dynamite bombs precisely like the one thrown. Mr. Grinnell was interrupted at this point by General Butler, who said he should want to cross-examine him if it was competent for him to do so.
Mr. Grinnell—“You shall have that privilege, General.”
Mr. Grinnell, resuming, said that such seizure was not a thing which this court could regulate. It had said in the Ker kidnappingkidnapping case that it was not for the court to determine how he (the prisoner) got here. The court simply said: “You are here.” The things seized in the search of these prisoners’ premises “were there,” and it was for the court to determine whether they were legally there. The only question was, “Are these things testimony?” and that was not an inquiry for the court.
SIMPLY EVIDENCE.
Forgery, murder, and other crimes had to be proved, Mr. Grinnell said, by such evidence. “The pistol found in the hand of the assassin Guiteau was forcibly taken from him, and his papers, if I remember rightly, were overhauled. They were ’there’ (that is, in the court), and it was nobody’s business how they got there. That the search and seizure in this case was an unreasonable search and seizure from the point of view of the defendants I have no doubt.”
In conclusion Mr. Grinnell said: “It strikes us from our standpoint that the foundation of the constitution is less likely to be impaired by refusing to grant this writ than by granting it.”
THE GENERAL’S INDIVIDUALITY.
After a great deal of rambling talk about the composition of the jury, dissatisfaction with the record, lack of time for preparation, the sentencing of the prisoners in their absence and that of their counsel, the injustice done them by “unreasonable search and seizure,” etc., General Butler said that if all these things could be done the question was to be debated whether this government would not be a little better if it were overturned into an anarchy than if it were to be carried on in this fashion.
“I have no fear,” he said, “of being misunderstood upon this question. I have the individuality of being the only man in the UuitedUnited States that condemned and executed men for undertaking to overturn the law. There were thousands of them. And for that act, please your honors, a price was set on my head as though I were a wolf, and $25,000 was offered to any man that could capture me, to murder me, by Jefferson Davis and his associates, and who, if they were here at your bar, trying to ascertain whether they should have an honest and a fair trial for their great crimes, and they called upon me—their lives in danger—I should hold it to be my duty to stand here and do all that I might to defend them. That is the chivalry of the law, if I understand it, and if I don’t it is of not much consequence, for I am quite easily and quickly passing away.”