Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 July 1911 — TWO M’NAMARAS WILL NOT PLEAD [ARTICLE]

TWO M’NAMARAS WILL NOT PLEAD

Refusal Is Plainly Surprise to Prosecution. PRISONERS BEFORE BORDWELL ' . ‘ ; ••' '.. I ’ . ' . : , - • / Labor Leaders Indicted for Times T/namiting and Resultant Killing of Nineteen Men Take Unexpected Course. Los Angeles, July 7—When John J. McNamara,, the accused Indiana labor leader, and his brother, James B. McNamara, were called into Judge Bordwell’a department of the superior court, the defense in the alleged dynamite conspiracy case sprang a surprise. - Both men were summoned to plead to nineteen charges of murder, the result of the destruction of the Times newspaper plant on OcL 1, 1910. In addition, John *J. McNamara was expected to plead to the charge that he had conspired to destroy the Llewellyn Iron works. Instead he challenged the jurisdiction of the court, claiming that it had no right to exact a plea or to try him on either the nineteen had conspire dto destroy the Llewellyn iron works indictment, because he was extradited from Indianapolis not for murder, but for alleged dynamiting. This move plainly surprised the prosecution.

A motion for the quashing of the indictments was made only in the case of James B. McNamara, who entered no plea whatever, holding that the indictments against him should not stand because Earl Rogers, who acted as special district attorney to aid the inquisitors during the investigation, bad previously been active on behalf of the Times and Merchants and Manufacturers’ association during the search for evidence.

The prosecution met the move of the defense with a motion to disallow the plea of jurisdiction. An argument on the relevancy of John McNamara’s action continued all day.