REVIEW REFUSED

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 145, 16 December 1935, Page 11

REVIEW REFUSED

HAUPTMANN GUILT

BOMBSHELL BY DR. CONDON

OFFERS OF BRIBES

United Tress Association—By Electric Tele-

erapli—Copyright. NEW YORK, December 13. Despite vigorous efforts on the part of the defence to reopen the case, Mr. Justice Trenchard, at Trenton, New Jersey, today announced the Supreme Court's refusal to review the conviction and sentenced Hauptmann to die in the electric chair on January 14. The defence indicated that it would attempt to prevent the execution through one of three possible devices. First, it may undertake to present new evidence to Mr. Justice Trenchard and ask for a postponement; second, it may present before the Federal Court a technical question of law; third, it may petition the New Jersey Court of Pardons for a commutation o£ the death penalty to life imprisonment. Meanwhile, to further complicate the case, Governor Hoffman|has issued a formal statement to the effect that he shared with hundreds of thousands of others doubt if Hauptmann's conviction were a final solutions of the murder of Colonel Lindbergh's baby, and indicated that he would like a further investigation before Hauptmann went to the electric chair. Dr. J. F. Condon, Hauptmann's intermediary in the handing over of the. ransom money, dropped a bombshell into the whole complicated affair today when he said that he had been offered bribes exceeding 250,000 dollars to exert efforts to have the sentence reduced to life imprisonment, but had refused all because he was convinced Hauptmann was guilty. He declined to name the persons who attempted to influence him. Bruno Richard Hauptmann, convicted as murderer of Charles A. Lindbergh, jun., brought his case finally to the highest court in the land when Egbert Rosecrans, of the prisoner's counsel, deposited with the Supreme Court on November 12 a petition demanding a review of the action of the New Jersey Court of Errors and Appeals in sustaining Hauptmann's conviction by the trial court at Flemington, N.J., last February, said the "New York Times" last month. Hauptmann, who himself signed the petition, declared that the Court of Errors and Appeals erred in its findings because his constitutional rights of life and liberty were jeopardised by "biased and exaggerated newspaper reports," a "hysterical mob spirit" surrounding the jury, the "picture of a circus maximus," daily presented to the jury, and: "Because of the daily presence of Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh at the trial, which unduly influenced the jury to view him as the real prosecutor and constantly presented to the jury the picture o£ a bereaved father for whose sorrow the world demanded a sacrifice." In addition, Hauptmann asserted, there were "repeated outbursts" in the courtroom. The Attorney-General, Mr. David T. Wilentz, made "an inflammatory summation far beyond the evidence." The State had "varying theories" as to the prisoner's guilt. The trial Judge, Supreme Court Justice Thomas W. Trenchard, "portrayed emphatic approval" of the State's theories and witnesses, and delivered to the jury a charge "argumentative to a degree which made comments on evidence characteristically an act of advocacy." Harsh denunciations of At-torney-General Wilentz were contained in the petition, coupled with severe criticisms of Justice Trenchard's charge to the jury. Mr. Wilentz, it was said, "bullied and argued" with Hauptmann and other witnesses and the AttorneyGeneral's summing up carried "unfair attacks and unfair insinuations." Justice Trenchard's charge, it was alleged, "impaired a free and unbiased verdict." The State of New Jersey, the petition declared, presented "a material variance" regarding the cause of the Lindbergh child's death. Mr. Wilentz and Anthony M. Hauck, Prosecutor of the Pleas in Hunterdon County, first charged that death resulted from a fall from the ladder, but later Mr. Wilentz implied that death came from a blow by a chisel in the bedroom, the document stated. "The jury was not properly sequestered and separated from the mass of the community, as the jury intermingled with the general populace and were subjected to expressions of popular opinion detrimental to the defendant" the petition declared. The petition asked the Supreme Court for opportunity to take additional testimony, a request previously denied by the New Jersey court.