Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 December 1905 — A RECORD-BREAKING TRIAL. [ARTICLE]

A RECORD-BREAKING TRIAL.

i i DHHonlty In Selecting Jury Adds to Notoriety in GHhooley Case. It took GO days and cost Cook County about $40,000 to se.’ect twelve jurors to try Charles Gilhooley and several associates who are charged with having killed Carl Carlstroni, a non-union ■carriage worker in Chicago last spring. Gilhooley and his companions are said to be “sluggers,” and alleged to have been in the employ of one of the unions. They were indicted for felonious assault. There were summoned as veniremen 4,150 men, of wlionr, 720 were excused without examination or could not be found. Not all of these were examined, but 1,931 men had to be examined before the number’required by law could be found. In this respect the case is without a parallel in American legal annals. Two weeks were consumed without the selection of a single juryman. It took from Sept. 18 to Dee. 2 to complete the jury. Of the veniremen, singularly, fewer were excused because of prejudices tlieyjhad formed than because of the educational test. The latter seemed to be the great obstacles. At least one-third were unable to understand ordinary English terms and many were without sufficient knowledge to have understood the instructions of the court. Over 100 were unable to use intelligently in sentences such words as “caution,” “implied” and “provoked.” ■'* The assault wAs'committed April 13. Caiistrom, the victim, was a non-union employe at the carriage shop of Fred Meckel. A strike had been declared against the company, hut Carlstroni refused to quit. It is alleged that for sls the alleged “slugger” on trial agreed with representatives of the Carriage and Wagon Workers’ Union; their co-defendant, to punish Carlstroni. On the evening of the assault he was returning home when he was set on by three men, afterward identified by eyewitnesses as Gilhooley, Looney and Feeley. He was left apparently dead, but recovered consciousness at the Washington Park Hospital. lie died April 27 from pneumonia, thought to have been superinduced by injuries due to the assault. On May 13 Gilhooley, Feeley and Looney were arrested by detectives under Inspector Lavin. A few days later Newman, Casey and George Miller, of the union, were arrested. They were alleged to have admitted to the police a bargain with those previously arrested for the assault on Carlstroni. This was followed by the arrest of ILeideu, Novak, Deutsch and Meller, who also are alleged to have confessed to the police. All except Meller, then president of the union, have withdrawn confessions. Meller, after having pleaded hot guilty, changed his plea to guilty before Judge Chetlain. The arrest of Edward Shields followed in a few days, but George Mullen, formerly recording secretary of the union, apd indicted with the others, avoided arrest.