INNOCENCE PROVED

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 April 1925, Page 7

INNOCENCE PROVED

* —- . . ■ DRAMATIC COURT SCENES. 1 ' ‘ . In a’ daze, Edgar Whalen, ex-cdn--17 stable and ex-convict, heard a Broqklyn . (New York) jury pronp.unce him 3 guilty of robbery, and the. judge re- ‘ niand him for sentence. For extortion V while in the police force, Whalen liad " already served five years in Sing • Sing Prison; he knew this new conviction meant 20 more years behind the bars. . - i = Warders grasped Whalen and were I leading him back to his cell, when he wrenched himself free, faced round towards the judge and exclaimed: “Oh, sir! I swear to you before Al- ; mighty God, that I am innocent of this crime. I don’t kn'ow anything n about it.” Again the attendants seized him, this time roughly, and hurried him away. d Mr. Justice Martin, struck by the >, despairing earnestness of the man, d gazed after him thoughtfully. So did n the prosecuting attorney. So did the ° jurymen as l they filed out> silently -and r- uneasily.. Three weeks afterwards the prisonj er was brought up to hear his fate. ' f Meanwhile the judge and the proseII cutor had been investigating. r “Your Honor,” said the prosecutor, a “I am glad to say that further in- ,? quiry lias shown that this defendant 1 is guiltless.. J. move .that his convicH tion be set aside, the indictment dis--6 missed, and the prisoner set at l liberty.” d The judge nodded, smiled at I W’halen, and >said, “The motion is n granted.” . ,f Again Whalen was escorted out, q but this time the hands of the Court d attendants, were grasping his kindly, and tears of joy were’. coursing down his cheeks as he set opt to rejoin his wife and two children/ It had been proved .that, as he. had c - protested, Whalen was nowhere near the scene of the robbery with which f r he had been charged—the looting of ’ a jeweller’s shop—at the time- the ' crime was committed. - - ' .