432
The Green Bag
government was greatly aided by the-sensa tional testimony of Oliver Spitzer, who was unexpectedly released from the federal peni tentiary at Atlanta, having been pardoned in order that his evidence might be roduced. Special deputy Attorne —General enry L. ig 'nson, assisted by infred I. Denison, con noted the rosecution. Three of the defendants, Wal er, Voelker and Halligan, decided to lead guilty early in the trial. Ernest W. erbracht was convicted on all six counts, and the j brought in a verdict of seven to five for the acquittal of James F. Bandernagel, former cashier of the refinery.
tempora injunction at St. Louis againstflthe Western runk Line Association, restraining the enforcement of most of the higher rates, on the ground that the agreement under which the rates were advanced was in viola tion of the Sherman law. The corn anies had allowed one person to file at ashinggzon notice of the advances contemplated. he action was a com lete surprise to the rail ways, which had 11 kept in ignorance of the plans of the government. They were consequently unable to prevent the imme diate issuing of the injunction without notice, by Judge . P. Dyer of the United States
The government was unsuccessful in its prosecution of Fritzn- Au stus Heinze, who after a trial lastin neary three weeks was acquitted of the arge ofNational misapplBlank 'ng the funds of the Mercantile in
held a conference with Western railroad presidents, in conse uence of which the rail roads agreed to wit draw the schedules en joined, and not to increase their rates until after the rate bill pending in Congress should become a law.
District Court.
1907, and of overoertifying the checks of his brother's firm, Otto Heinze & Co.
On June 6, President Taft
The trial
took place before Judge Hou h in the United States Circuit Court at ew York City, United States Attorney Henry A. Wise hav ing charge of the prosecution, while John B. Stanchfield conducted the defense. Heinze afterward declared that the trial had cost him between $4,000,000 and $5,000,000, in dam
aged credit and legal expenses. The govern ment has appealed to the United States Supreme Court. The ap a1 avers that Judge Hough was in error w en he quashed the seven numbered counts in the Heinze indict ment which alleged the misapplication of funds of the Mercantile National Bank, in cashing checks of Otto Heinze8z Co. The appeal is allowable because there was no trial on these counts. The next term of the United States Supreme Court will open on October 10. The three great suits assigned for reargument, namely the Standard Oil case, the American Tobacco Co. case and the Car ation Tax cases, will doubtless be heard soon after the Court opens, thou h in what order cannot now be
foretold. T e Court puzzled many people in April by setting two of the fifteen tax cases for rear ment at the beginning of the October term. he decision announced on May 31, that all the cases would be reargued, together with the explanation that the decision to re assign was delayed by the hope that a satis factory determination obviating a rehearing might be reached before the summer recess, shows that no particular significance was to be attributed to the earlier announcement. The later announcement that all cases would have to be reargued does not lend much support to the earlier rumor that the Court had found the constitutionality of the tax doubtful only as applied to the circumstances of two of the fifteen cases. On complaint of a. committee of Western shippers that twenty-five railways had joined to_ increase frei ht rates, Attorney-General Wrckersham on ay 31 filed a petition for a
In the so-called "white slave" investiga tion by District Attorney Whitman of New York, the government succeeded in convict ing one of the three defendants, Belle Moore, ofgthe charge of selling two girls for immoral purposes and she was sentenced to state prison. The evidence produced was that she, with Harry Levinson and Alec Anderson, had sold four girls to special agent G. A. Miller of the District Attorney's oflice, two college women having aided the ofiice in working up the case. The grand jury of which John D. Rockefeller, Jr., was foreman, had brought in six indictments, and the three prisoners were arraigned before Judge Crain May 2. One of them, Levinson, pleaded guilty and promised a full disclosure, but the state‘
ment which he gave to the District Attorney did not afiord the evidence of organized traffic which was looked for. The sensa tional statements made early in the history of the case were in some respects unsup ported, the newspaper report that one of the four 'rls sold was a child of fifteen who cried at ing taken away from her Teddy bear bein shown to be false, as she was a woman 0 mature years. On June 10 the third defendant, Anderson, was released, and
the case against him was abandoned.
Personal— The Bench Hon. Claudius B. Grant, late of the Michi
gan Supreme Court, is now to practise law with the legal firm of Shaw, Warren, Cady & Oakes, of Detroit.
Judge Willard M. McEwen of Chicago has retired from the state circuit court to become head of the law firm heretofore known as Weissenbach, Shrimski & Meloan. Hon. Lucilius A. Emery, Chief Justice of the
Su rerne Court of Maine,
delivered a
series 0 lectures on probate law and practice
