Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 123, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 October 1903 — MANY SHACKLES MAY FALL [ARTICLE]

MANY SHACKLES MAY FALL

Every Military Prisoner In America May Be Bet I'rea. On a decision which will filed in St. Paul during the October term of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals depends tho freedom of every military and guardhouse prisoner in the United States. The decision may break the shackles of a thousand men. The case is that of Edward M. Erode, James F. Coffee, Andrew Hnndshoe and John 11. Morris, prisoners at Fort Leavenworth military penitentiary. The ease hangs on what construction the court will place on the court-martial commitment that each man “Ahall be confined in such place as the reviewing authority shall^direct.” The prisoners claim that only the •courts martial have the power to direct A place of confinement, and that such an order is judicial and beyond the power of any reviewing authority. As the courts martial failed to direct a place of confinement, there is no such place, and the men must go free if this contention is upheld. Every military prisoner in the United States has hnd his place of confinement directed by the reviewing authority, and oil will be affected.