Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 May 1911 — EVEN BAD GRAMMAR [ARTICLE]

EVEN BAD GRAMMAR

Disregarded By the Supreme Court In the Bader Case. The supreme court yesterday affirmed the conviction of Clinton Bader, of Jasper county, who, under the name of Charles Bader, was tried for the presenting of a false claim to the commissioners of Jasper county. Bader was the president of the

Winamac Bridge Company. The company built a bridge for Jasper county under a contract specifying the size and weight of the steel to be used. The contract price for the bridge was 51.400 and SI.IOO of this sum was paid before the bridge was fully completed.' After the bridge was fully completed the final claim of S3OO was filed. This is the claim on which he was tried, as it was alleged to be false from the fact that steel which was used in the bridge was more than thirteen thousand pounds less in weight than it would have weighed if the company had used the iron specified in the * contract. The completed bridge was only 65 per cent, of the contract weight, and not worth, it was alleged, within more than S3OO of the amount it would have been worth if the company had built the bridge according to contract. After Bader was convicted his attorneys represented to Governor Marshall that he had meritorious grounds for appeal and the Governor allowed him to go for a year on parole, pending the appeal. The reasons he assigned to the supreme court why his case should be reversed were that the indictment did not contain quotation marks after the ending of the copy of the claim filed, that the indictment only charged that he knowingly presented a false claim, which he contended did not charge sufficiently that he knew it was false; that he had a valid contract to build the bridge and the only proof was that he did not build it according to contract; that the indictment did not set out the verification to the claim and some few objections -relating to the rulings of the trial and instructions.

The supreme court says that even bad grammer or poor spelling will not void an indictment and that the quotatiop marks were immaterial, and the indictment could not be read to mean otfyer than that he intended to present a false claim, while the same rule would apply with regard to fraudulent work that applied in the Harry Brunaugh case. The court also holds there were no errors on the trial either as to evidence or instructions. - Bader, April 7, 1911, presented a petition to be released on bail again, pending his appeal under the new laws, but the court took no action on the matter. The case was orally argued before the supreme court on Tuesday of this week.—lndianapolis .News

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