Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 2, Number 28, DeMotte, Jasper County, 2 February 1933 — JASPER-NEWTON COUNTY CIRCUIT COURTS TO DIVIDE [ARTICLE]

JASPER-NEWTON COUNTY CIRCUIT COURTS TO DIVIDE

ACT OF 1929 WILL BE EFFECTIVE ON PUBLICATION. WILL GIVE CONTINUOUS COURTS A ruling given out at Indianapolis will give Jasper and Newton counties continuous courts, according to a news dispatch received here The act, separating the Jasper-Newton circuit courts, passed in the 1929 session of the legislature will be included in the volume of 1933 acts when it is published. The act separates the JasperNewton circuit court, making two circuits. Harry G. Leslie, former Governor, attempted to pocket veto the bill, but no records of it could be found in his office. Judge Pickens of superior court, Room 5, recently mandated Frank Mayr, Jr., secretary of state, to publish the bill as a duly enacted law of the 1929 general assembly. The mandate ruling was made in a suit brought by Attorney Milton E. Graves of Morocco. Mayr appealed the decision to the Indiana supreme court, but withdrew his appeal Thursday. Philip Lutz, Jr., attorney-general, has held that since the original copy of the bill can not be found, the secretary of state may use the complete text of the law as recited in Judge Pickens ruling. It will be published as an omitted act. Records in the office of Charles Kettleborough, director of the legislature. reference bureau, showed that L. O. Chasey, secretary to the former governor, had taken out a copy and had not returned it, according to Lutz. Chasey said he did not know what had become of the copy he had. It was said at the office of Governor Paul V. McNutt that the circuit court judge and prosecuting attorney will be appointed for Newton circuit court. Judge Moses Leopold and Charles Halleck, prosecuting attorney, of the present circuit, both are from Jasper county. The new order will terminate a lengthy legal battle, waged by attorneys of Jasper and Newton county in an effort to separate the two courts. It will be remembered that after the bill was passed by the legislature in 1929 Governor Leslie refused to sign the bill and the measure found its way to the governor's safe. Leslie stated at the time that the bill did not get to his office before the time limit set for official signature. However, Jasper and Newton county attorneys employed Attorney Dan Simms of Lafayette to look after the two county’s interests and the bill was traced from its passage in both the house and senate. It so happened that experienced clerks were serving in both the house and senate in the 1929 legislature and interested parties had been following the process of the legislature in passing the bill. These tw clerks remembered the JasperNewton bill being delivered to the governor in plenty of time for his signature and had listed the bill on their records and the time they were delivered to the governor’s office. Suit was brought in the Marion superior court, as above stated, and Judge Pickets ruled that Secretary of State Mayr should be mandated to publish the bill making it a law. Mayr appealed, but subsequently withdrew his appeal. It is not possible to mandate the state governor, but when the bill became lost the entire text was written in Judge Picken’s records and was available. Following the passage of the bill in the legislature of 1929 Attorney T. B. Cunningham of Kentland was elected as judge in a regular election and Carey Murphey of Morocco was elected prosecutor. In the meantime comment is rife as just who Governor McNutt will appoint as judge and prosecutor of Newton county. In the 1932 election Mr. Cunningham was the Democratic standard bearer for judgeship and George L. Sammons was the Democratic candidate for prosecutor.