Читать книгу "The System," As Uncovered by the San Francisco Graft Prosecution - Franklin Hichborn - Страница 15

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Three months[142] after his indictment in the “French Restaurant” extortion cases—three months of continuous fighting to evade the issue—Ruef found his last technical obstruction, as far as the State courts were concerned, swept away, and was forced to enter his plea to the charge contained in the indictment. He pleaded “not guilty.” His trial was set for March 5.

Up to the day before the date fixed for the trial to begin, nothing had come up to indicate further delay. On March 4, however, Ruef’s bondsmen surrendered him into the custody of the Sheriff. Ruef then applied to Superior Judge J. C. B. Hebbard for a writ of habeas corpus. The application was based on the allegation dealt with in a previous chapter, that Grand Juror Wise was ineligible, because he had been drawn as a trial juror within a year before the impanelment of the Grand Jury of which he was a member. On the ground that Wise was ineligible for Grand Jury service, Ruef’s attorneys contended, their client’s restraint was in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments to the Federal Constitution, thereby raising a Federal issue and paving the way for appeal to the Federal courts.

In opposing Ruef’s new move, Hiram W. Johnson,[143] who had been employed to assist the District Attorney in the “graft” prosecution, pointed out that the cases named in the petition were pending in a co-ordinate branch of the Superior Court; that they were set for trial the following day; that the points, including the Federal points, had been made subject of extensive arguments before Hebbard’s colleague, Judge Dunne, and in the course of those arguments every question presented in the proceedings had been passed upon.

Ach, representing Ruef, denied that the Federal question had been presented. Johnson insisted that it had. An unfortunate scene followed.[144] Hebbard showed symptoms of intoxication. Johnson, Langdon and Heney finally refused to participate further in the proceedings and walked out of the courtroom.[145] The withdrawal of the District Attorney and his assistants did not delay Judge Hebbard’s decision. He denied the writ Ruef prayed for, but he allowed an appeal from his order to the Supreme Court of the United States, and admitted Ruef to bail pending that appeal.

One of Ruef’s attorneys filed the writ of error issued by Judge Hebbard with the clerk of the Federal Circuit Court. May 2 was set as the date for the appearance on the writ of error before the United States Supreme Court at Washington.[146]

The Aetna Indemnity Company had furnished Ruef’s bond. This company surrendered Ruef to the Sheriff in the forenoon. In the afternoon it furnished the bail that had been imposed by Judge Hebbard.

Ruef, in Hebbard’s order granting him opportunity to take his case to the Federal Courts, had basis for further struggle in the courts to evade trial. But he undertook a new move. After leaving Hebbard’s courtroom on the afternoon of March 4, Ruef dropped out of sight as completely as though the earth had opened and swallowed him.

For three days the regular peace officers of San Francisco searched San Francisco for him but they did not find him. When Ruef’s case was called for trial in Judge Dunne’s department on the morning following the proceedings in Judge Hebbard’s court, Ruef’s attorney, Samuel M. Shortridge, was present, but not the defendant.

Shortridge was in the position of an attorney in court without a client.[147] After a wait of four hours, to give Ruef every opportunity to make his appearance, Heney moved that the bonds of the absent defendant be declared forfeited, specifying the bonds originally given as well as those furnished in the proceedings before Hebbard.

Judge Dunne, in ruling upon Heney’s motion, stated that he was proceeding as though the proceedings before Judge Hebbard had not occurred. Those proceedings, he announced, he felt were under a species of fraud. He ordered Ruef’s original bonds forfeited and took the question of the forfeiture of the bonds in the proceedings before Judge Hebbard under advisement. He considered it his duty, he said, to proceed with the trial of the case until ordered to desist by the Supreme Court or by the Court of Appeals.

Attorney Shortridge announced to Judge Dunne that in proceeding with the hearing he might find himself in contempt of the Supreme Court of the United States. Judge Dunne stated that that would not embarrass him, and in any event, he would not proceed with the matter until the defendant was in court.

The day passed without the defendant’s whereabouts being discovered. Sheriff O’Neil reported that he had been unable to find the fugitive, but expressed his belief that he would be able to do so eventually. With that understanding court adjourned for the day.

The day following, Ruef’s attorneys appealed to the State Appellate Court[148] for a writ of prohibition to prevent Judge Dunne and others from further proceeding against Ruef in the extortion cases, and to show cause why the writ should not be made permanent. Ruef being in hiding, the application was not signed by the petitioner. The Appellate Court, after twenty-four hours, denied the petition. Ruef’s representatives then went before the State Supreme Court with the same representations. And here, again, eventually, Ruef lost.

In the meantime, Ruef had not been found. The day following his disappearance, Judge Dunne disqualified the Sheriff and named the next officer in authoritative sequence in such matters, the Coroner, W. J. Walsh, as elisor, to arrest Ruef and bring him into court.

Coroner Walsh had no better success than had Sheriff O’Neil. Ruef had disappeared on the night of Monday, March 4. On Friday, March 8, after three days of unavailing search by O’Neil and Walsh,[149] Judge Dunne disqualified Walsh and appointed William J. Biggy[150] as elisor to arrest the fugitive.

Within two hours Biggy, accompanied by Detective William J. Burns, had located Ruef at a road-house in the San Francisco suburbs and had placed him under arrest.[151]

Having taken his man,[152] the elisor was at a loss to know what to do with him. To put him in the city prison was to turn him over to the police; to put him in the county jail was to turn him over to the Sheriff. The Chief of Police was even then under indictment with Ruef, a co-defendant; the Sheriff had been disqualified. The only alternative was for Biggy himself to hold Ruef until the court could act. Biggy accordingly secured suitable quarters at the Hotel St. Francis, and there held Ruef a prisoner until the following Monday, when he was taken before Judge Dunne.

Judge Dunne refused to admit Ruef to bail, remanded him to Elisor Biggy’s custody, and continued his trial until the following morning, Tuesday, March 12.

Ruef immediately made application to the Supreme Court for a writ of habeas corpus, asking to be released from the custody of Elisor Biggy and placed in charge of the Sheriff. But here again Ruef was defeated. Elisor Biggy continued his keeper for many months following.

Ruef, after his appeal to the Federal Supreme Court, had exhausted every legal device known to himself and his attorneys to escape trial in the extortion case pending before Judge Dunne.[153] His last recourse gone, Ruef found himself brought face to face with trial before a jury. On March 13 the selecting of jurors to try Ruef began in Judge Dunne’s court.

But events of far greater moment than petty extortion had the attention of San Francisco. Even as Ruef was in hiding, Detective Burns and his assistants had trapped three members of the Board of Supervisors in bribery. This opened up the most fruitful field of the graft prosecution, and immediately the extortion cases became of comparative unimportance. The trapping of the three Supervisors led to confessions from fourteen others, which involved not only Ruef in enormous bribery transactions, but also prominent members of the bar, and leaders in the social, financial and industrial life of California.