AMERICAN JUSTICE

Greymouth Evening Star, 8 November 1923, Page 8

AMERICAN JUSTICE

MURDER TRIAL SENSATION.

For months past New York State has asked the question : “Can a rich man kill a poor man and get away with it?” The answer “Yes” was given by a jury when Walter S. Ward, son of an enormously rich man, was acquitted for the confessed'killing of a penniless former sailor, Clarence M. Peters, and set free. Now the United States is asking whether the positions had been reversed would the sailor have escaped the noose. The fight for the life of Walter Ward, millionaire son of the multi-millionaire head of the Ward Company of New York, has been probably the last word in modern murder trials. The case has been tried on everything but actual evidence. Testimony of, fact has been a negligible quantity, and technicalities have figured in the court proceedings with a vengeance, making the law a laughing stock in the country. The State “rested” its demand for a verdict of first degree murder on Ward’s own statement of the manner in which lie took the life of Clarence Peters. The defence offered no evidence whatsoever.

No appeal made to a jury in recent years has come''so close to the famous “Dementia Americana” and “Sir Gallahad” oratory of Delphin Michael Delmas in the noteorious Harry Thaw case, as the summing up of Ihe former Judge. Isaac N. Mills, chief counsel for Wall er Ward.

Judge Mills cast aside all the rules of jurisprudence and made a four-hour speech, which brought tears to the eyes of many who heard it, for it was a masterpiece in appeal. He said Hie defence had called no witnesses because it had no intention of opening the door of the closet containing the Ward family skeleton. Ignoring all intimations of the ‘‘double life” of the defendant, Judge Mills preferred to picture him as he sat pale and .subdued beside his frail but beautiful young wife in the courtroom.

As to the evidence? Well, Ward had told his story of the killing, had said his life was threatened by a gang of blackmailers intent upon digging up the Ward skeleton. '[’hat was bis story, said counsel, and he was going to stick to il. ‘‘lf you don’t like our slur vol' the crime, produce a. better one,” said the defence, defiantly.

The State, unusually represented in this case by the Attorney-General, Tailed to produce a better story. It .said it did not need a better story. It would be content to show that Ward had lied and lied and lied in his statement. It had a theory, and it averred that Ward was a blackmailer himself. It. was a theory only. The State said Ward was about to be turned up as the leader of a blackmail plot against his wealthy father. It said the father knew of this, and there fore had fled the State so he would not have to testily against his son.

No jury ever adjudge the guilt or innocence o fa 'man brought within the shadow of death at the scaffold on such sketchy evidence as was intro-

duced in the strange case. There wa.s no impelling weight of testimony in one direction or the other. Ward’s iil'e was left in jeopardy, dependent upon the eloquence of two men. Probably there would not have been