E. M. Devall, Sheriff Jones county.
After Bentonville Taylor returned from Mobile, I saw him and told him of the rumor that was in circulation relative to his going to Mobile as a witness against Col. J. R. S. Pitts, and he denied emphatically to me of having any share in the transaction, and also stated that the aforesaid rumor was false.
[Signed.] Edward W. Goff.
The next question to be dealt with is the miserable plea of insanity, and forged names in the confessions.
First, let the report from the inquisition jury be read, which will be found on [page 113] of this work. Again, it is well known by those who visited Copeland in person, that there was a keenness and shrewdness about him which distinguished him from ordinary men; and all the promptings given to feign insanity did not amount to anything but deserving failure. And as to the gratuitous charge of forging names, the defendant did not know anything about them previous to being given by Copeland. He did not know that such names were in existence before, and of course could not forge in the absence of all knowledge appertaining; but the conduct of the prosecution, with hundreds of living witnesses, go, as quoted from the letter just referred to, “to nail to the cross forever the truth of Copeland’s confessions.”
So much for the trial in Mobile in the first case, and now for the necessary comments to further enable the reader to comprehend the whole.
There were two other cases on the same docket of precisely a similar nature to the first against the defendant. For two or three years afterward he was in regular attendance, and always ready for trial; but the prosecution would not allow either case to come on until known that his presence was required in the army during the war; and then it had the cases called up, and the bonds declared forfeited. The two cases were ordered dismissed, and, some several years afterward, the bondsmen were finally released by the “Commissioners of Revenue” without injury.
Nothing is plainer than of the prosecution being glad of any plausible pretext for dismissing the cases—anything in the shape of a convenient opportunity for relief in the awkward situation in which it stood. Why so determined and successful to bring on instanter the first case in spite of the most powerful reasons for a temporary continuance? And why, when this was over, was it equally determined and successful to ward off the two remaining cases? Is it not evident, notwithstanding all the prostituted forces at command, that it was unwilling to make a second experiment? But how stands the presiding Judge affected in this slimy affair? In the first case, in defiance of the most powerful cause assigned in favor, he would not allow one hour of continuance of the case; but from term to term, from year to year, he allowed the prosecution all it wanted, regardless of all the urgent efforts of the defendant for the remaining trials to be proceeded with to save entire ruin from excessive and repeated expenses. But when the defendant’s absence was compelled by demands made from the War Department, then did this Judge allow the case to be pressed forward by the prosecution, and the bonds declared forfeited! If this junta, or combination of Judge with the prosecution did not exist, the plainest of all circumstantial demonstrations are not worthy of any notice whatever. But this is only one instance out of a number, which will be given of this Judge’s partiality—of his palpable efforts to do violence to justice.
Again, mark his conduct in endeavoring to obtain a forced and unnatural verdict. After twenty-four hours of close confinement, the jury returned with the report that there was no earthly chance of coming to an agreement. The Judge bid them, contrary to all custom, to again retire, with a declaration that he would hold it in confinement until the verdict could be made up, even though an indefinite period were required to accomplish the object.