Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 25.pdf/169

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156

The Green Bag

executive committee was also elected, which will later designate the place for the next annual meeting of the associa tion.

"TjWo South Dakota Judges On January 1, Judges Dighton Cor son and Dick Haney retired from the Supreme Court of South Dakota. Judge Corson had served as a member of the court since the admission of the state in 1889. Judge Haney, upon the admis sion of the state, was elected a circuit judge, and was promoted by appoint ment to the Supreme Court in 1896, where he remained until his retirement. Both had thus seen more than twentytwo Judge years Haney of judicial wasservice born for in the Lansing, state. Iowa, in 1852, and was graduated from the law department of the University of Iowa in 1874. For ten years he prac tised law in his home town of Lansing but in 1885 removed to Plankington, Dakota Territory. Then came in rapid succession public service as district attorney, circuit judge, and member of the Supreme Court. He has already returned to active practice, having formed a partnership with T. J. Spangler at Mitchell, South Dokota. Judge Corson is, in every sense of the phrase, a pioneer lawyer. He was born in Somerset county, Maine, educated at Waterville, and admitted to practice in that state over sixty years ago. He removed to Milwaukee and was a mem ber of the Wisconsin legislature in 1857. The following year, he was elected dis trict attorney for Milwaukee county. In 1861, he settled in Virginia City, Nevada, and, upon the organization of that territory, was appointed district attorney for the district embracing Vir ginia City and the then famous Comstock mine. At this time Mark Twain was

assistant secretary of the territory and a close friend of young Corson. In 1876, the discovery of gold in the Black Hills of Dakota was announced. A year later, Judge Corson, following the lure of the frontier, settled in Deadwood. He was thereafter a member of the constitutional conventions of 1885 and 1889. At the present time, he is eightyfive years of age, in full possession of his mental and physical vigor, but will not return to active practice. Miscellaneous A petition for the recall of Judge Charles L. Weller of San Francisco was put in circulation and signed by a num ber of women Jan. 15, in view of Judge Weller's action in reducing from $3000 to $1000 the bail of Albert Hendricks, charged with assault upon a young girl. The prisoner after gaining his liberty fled the city. Judge Weller argued that he had merely followed the usual custom of the police courts. Twelve thousand signatures to the recall petition were secured in ten days, five thousand more than necessary to compel a recall election. Foulke E. Brandt, whom Judge Rosalsky of the New York Court of General Sessions sent to prison for thirty years in 1907 for burglary in the first degree, was granted a conditional pardon by Governor Sulzer on January 17, on his promising not to appear on the stage or otherwise to seek notoriety in con nection with the case, and on his re tracting all statements reflecting on the character of anyone connected with the affair. "Brandt is not a martyr," said the Governor. "As an individual he is entitled to little consideration. I have no sympathy for Brandt, but I have great regard for the due administration of justice."