Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 65, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 November 1911 — UNEXPECTEDTURN IN PACKERS' CASE [ARTICLE]

UNEXPECTEDTURN IN PACKERS' CASE

Wilkerson Moves to Quash Habeas Corpus Writs. QUESTION OF JURISDICTION United States’ Counsel See Only an Attempt of Defendants to Balk Trial and Secure Further Delay. _

Chicago, Nov. 17. An unexpected turn was given the habeas corpus proceedings before Judge Kohlsaat of the United States circuit court by a coup executed by the attorneys for the government. The case was brought for the release of nine of the ten packers indicted for the violation of the Sherman anti-trust law.

The move by the government caused a radical change in the proceedings before the court. Instead of hearing the question before him, being the constitutionality of the criminal section of the Sherman anti-trust law. Judge Kohlsaat found himself obliged to determine whether his court had jurisdiction to issue a writ of habeas corpus in the criminal case against the packers. This point itself involved two other questions—whether the review of questions similar to those raised in the demurrer of the packers before Judge Carpenter debarred Judge Kohlsaat from passing upon them and whether the nine packers had been legally surrendered by their bondsmen or had ever been subjected to restraint. The stage was set for what promised to be one of the most important legal struggles in the history of the country. The array of counsel for the combatants was prepared to fight to the bitter enas.

United States Senator W. S Kenyon of lowa, who was a “government trustbuster,” at the beginning of the proceedings figainst the packers, and Pierce Butler of St. Paul, who engineered the famous “flour suits,” lent their aid to the government attorneys. The future of the pending trial of the packers set for next Monday depended on the action Judge Kohlsaat would take in the habeas corpus case. According to counsel for the defepdants, if Judge Kohlsaat sustained their contentions and granted the writ, the case brought against the packers by the government would collapse and the packers go free. If the court refused to interfere with the order under which they were released from the jurisdiction of the district court by the habeas corpus proceedings, the government coqld appeal to the supreme court and have determined the validity of tae act. If he quashed the writ, the packers could pray a similar appeal;