F70 
 
 P3S8K3 
 
ARGUMENT 
 
 FOR 
 
 DISTRICT ATTORNEY 
 
 JOSEPH C. PELLETIER 
 
 (Respondent) 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES A. REED 
 
 (U. S. Senator) 7 
 
 AND 
 
 LOUIS G. BOYLE 
 
 (Ex. Atty.-G en 1 of Kansas) 
 
 BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRAUl 
 OHESTNHT HILL, 
 
 242 DOVER STREET 
 
 StASHINCTON PRESS 
 
AN ANSWER 
 
 For more than a decade, the man on whom executive officers, supreme 
 directors, and national and state officers have depended for judgment, j 
 initiative and guidance in the successive steps which have given the Knights 
 of Columbus the largest membership in the United States of any order , 
 based on Christian principles, whose objects, ritual and accomplishmenth ! 
 have been open to public scrutiny, whose primacy as an auxiliary in ! 
 all war work and a subsequent program of educational,' civic, patriotic and ] 
 rehabilitational endeavor is ideal, has been Supreme Advocate Joseph C. \ 
 Pelletier of Boston. t : 
 
 That this record of continuous success in diverse fields of leadership 
 might bring envy and hatred could be expected; but the actuality, osten- 
 tatiously planned against this man, but really leveled against the forces and 
 agencies he represents, passes comprehension. , 
 
 As District Attorney of a great American metropolis, elected and re- 
 elected again and again, during the last twelve years he has been officially 
 responsible for passing on eighty thousand cases, having considered at least \ 
 200,000 more. From this multitude thirty-one were originally selected by ''{ 
 the politicans representing the organized effort to discredit him, each and ( j 
 every one being sworn to as sufficient to warrant his removal. At the 
 last moment, without explanation or excuse, more than one-third of these 
 cases were withdrawn. 
 
 Those who know Mr. Pelletier will appreciate that in every capacity of 
 life, but especially as the peopWs lawyer of one of the great jurisdictions t 
 of the country, it has been always his policy to have a human interest in r 
 each individual case; to consider not only the justice which the wrong- \ i 
 doer deserves, but even more — the mercy which the Divine Fountain Head ii 
 of law, government and justice, decrees that every human being receive. \ 
 
 Joseph Pelletier is of the 7?iasses and for the 77iasses; none dares speak I 
 slightiTigly of his friend in his hearing; to love his friends and to be loved ’ 
 by them is his happiness. His is not the kind of brotherhood which is r 
 isolated, fugitive, unexerdsed, but of that sturdiness which fights when '^ 
 and where the need 7i\ay be. With such a record Joseph C. Pelletier ^ 
 approaches the tribunal of earthly justice as he will that of the last judg- 
 meTit, comforUd with the knowledge that this judg 7 nent will be based on I 
 his record. ® 
 
 JAMES A. FLAHERTY , Supreme Knight | 
 
Supreme f ubmal Court for tfje 
 Commonhjealtfi. 
 
 Rugg, C. J., Braley, DeCourcy, Carroll, Tenney TT 
 No. 4145. 
 
 J. WESTON ALLEN, Attorney General, Petitioner, 
 
 (by information) 
 
 vs. 
 
 JOSEPH C. PELLETIER, District Attorney, Respondent. 
 VOLUME XX. 
 
 ^ . Boston, January 23, 1922. 
 
 The Court came in at 9:30 o’clock. 
 
 ARGUMENTS FOR THE RESPONDENT. 
 
 , „ J- convenience of counsel in the arguments the 
 
 /Court wiU announce that at quarter past eleven this morning an inter- 
 • I mission of fifteen minutes will be taken until half past eleven. 
 
 MR, BOYLE: 
 
 to your Honor please, it now devolves upon counsel 
 
 to assist the court in analyzing the facts of this case. We are not 
 now so much concerned about the law as we are with a right understand- 
 
 inf thk^^e ^ t” possessed of sufficient candor, know- 
 
 oofo^-f ^ I be of some help to the court; it is my pur- 
 
 pose, if your Honors please, to analyze certain of these specifications 
 
 H J tv,” helpful in the interest of truth and 
 
 tice, then I will have served you in your task. ^ 
 
 Before undertaking the items themselves, may I suggest to vour 
 
 th?s”mante hfs°offi^^ of visualizing this case from the standpoint of 
 r y® cannot take these facts and analyze them 
 »t^v calm, judicial atmosphere of this court and 
 
 P®^®Pcctjve. We must take these facts and place them 
 atmosphere of this busy throbbing office where a vast 
 nultitude of men and incidents are daily passing. This is a huTan 
 vroblern, I do not know whether any of you gentlemen have ever 
 iccupied the position of District Attorney. I know that Senator 
 leed has. and I know that I have, and I know, if your Hoi^rs p™ 
 
that when you come to consider the facts that come before a District 
 Attorney, especially in a great city like this, where instant decisions 
 are frequently necessary and where error of judgment is, of course, 
 possible, we must be very careful when we search out the moral ele- 
 ments of conduct. 
 
 I first want to call your attention to a group of cases wherein 
 assistant District Attorneys are involved. There are four of them: 
 The Soracco, Nee, Stone and Mancovitz cases. Let me briefly call 
 your attention to these items. 
 
 The Soracco case: This case is brought under four paragraphs 
 of the complaint. Paragraphs^ 30^ and 32 need give us no concern. 
 Those paragraphs involve the District Attorney himself; that is to say, 
 that he directed of his own motion certain things. There is not even 
 a suggestion in the record that the District Attorney himself had aught 
 to do with the disposition of the Soracco case, or that the matter was 
 called to his attention prior to the action taken by Assistant District 
 Attorney Mancovitz. Paragraphs 34 and 35 charge that discovering 
 that the deputies did certain things he did not discharge them, and that is 
 the phase of the charge in the Soracco case to which I now address my 
 attention. In fact the only phase that could be involved under the 
 proof. The charge was that Soracco, a young man of twenty-two or 
 twenty-four years of age was running a liquor nuisance. The matter 
 came up before Assistant District Attorney, Mancovitz. This was one 
 of the late cases, 1921. There was one witness on the witness list, to 
 wit : Officer Campbell. When the matter came up for consideration the 
 attorney for young Soracco was present. It is in evidence from Officer 
 McTieman that this attorney made some statement; it is in evidence 
 before your Honors that the father of this young man owned the place, 
 although the young man’s name was on the license; it is in evidence 
 that the place changed hands immediately after this incident in the 
 District Attorney’s office. There is no evidence as to just what state- 
 ments were made to Mancovitz. It is sufficiently in evidence that the 
 young man did not own it. Now, what were the considerations that 
 prompted Mancovitz? I don’t know. But insofar as this record is 
 concerned, the presumptions are in his favor, that he was actuated by 
 perfectly proper motives under all the facts that were submitted to 
 him. Now, Pelletier had nothing whatever to do with the case up to 
 this stage. Later on, some time after that — some two months — 
 Commissioner Curtis, I think the name is — ^when I make an error I 
 would be glad to be corrected, because I can only help you if I keep 
 within the four comers of this record — Commissioner Curtis wrote to 
 Mr. Pelletier and said that there had been a complaint made about 
 this very place, and calling his attention to the fact that the case had 
 been disposed of without trial. Now what was done by Pelletier in 
 response to that letter doesn’t appear in this record. But if Pelletier 
 had not taken proper steps to correct any misconduct, or error, in his 
 office, you can rest assured that the diligent Attorney General would 
 have presented evidence in reference thereto. Here is the sole and 
 only case involving a liquor charge that is before this Court, and the 
 presumptions are in favor of Mr. Pelletier taking proper steps, if any 
 
 4 
 
mistake had been made. And this is the only incident in the himdreds 
 of cases that Mancovitz must have handled. 
 
 Here, then is the fact: Mancovitz recommended to the trial court 
 that the Soracco case be disposed of without trial. No improper 
 motive on the part of Mancovitz is even suggested. It must be pre- 
 sumed that he was actuated by a proper motive. True it is, he may 
 have acted unwisely. Now, Pelletier’s fault, if any, lies in the sole 
 circumstance that he did not discharge Mancovitz after he learned that 
 this case had been disposed of in the manner stated. What Pelletier 
 did in reference to the matter is not indicated. Every presumption 
 is to the effect that he took such action as was proper in the premises. 
 We do know this: This is the sole incident in which David Mancovitz 
 is involved touching official conduct. Of the many hundred cases 
 disposed of by this faithful assistant but one has been found wherein 
 it is claimed he committed error — no wrong or immoral conduct is 
 imputed to him. The worst that can be said is that he made a mis- 
 take. For failure to discharge him, Joe Pelletier is to be ousted from 
 his high office — this in face of the further fact that the Soracco case, out 
 of literally hundreds of liquor cases, is the only liquor case that it is 
 even suggested was improperly dealt with. As already indicated there 
 is no suggestion of immoral conduct, no political pull, no favoritism — 
 nothing but the naked fact that the case was disposed of without trial. 
 
 In reviewing this case, your Honors, please remember that it 
 was shown to Mancovitz, the Assistant District Attorney, that the 
 accused was a boy twenty-two years old ; he had no interest in the place ; 
 the place changed hands within a few days after the case was dis- 
 posed of ; there was but one witness shown on witness slip. These and 
 other matters furnish the background of suggestion as to possible rea- 
 sons for the action taken. Of one thing we are very sure — there is no 
 suggestion of unworthy motive. 
 
 That is all there is to the Mancovitz case.^ 
 
 Here is the Nee case, in which young Fred Sheenan is concerned. 
 He refused to prosecute. Some men were out in a field, ‘seeing an offi- 
 cer coming they ran down an open cellar way. This is the case where 
 they were charged with breaking in No. 18 cellar way and ran into the 
 adjoining cellar way which was No. 20. You will remember the witness, 
 we can all remember thart name because it is the name of a man some- 
 what familiar to our younger days — ^John L. SuUivan — an officer who 
 had been in the service of this great city for years, and is stiU in its 
 service — he was the complaining officer. Mr. Pelletier’s name is not 
 touched in this case only in that he did not discharge Sheenan after 
 he learned the fact that the case was dismissed. The truth is there 
 is not a word of testimony that the matter was ever called to his atten- 
 tion. This case comes under one of those phases of the complaint 
 wherein it is charged that an assistant district attorney did something 
 wrong and he, Pelletier, did not discharge him. Now what are the 
 facts? You must here visualize in your mind this yoimg man with a 
 multitude of cases, getting them ready to send to trial — it is in volume 
 13, if your Honors please, if you are looking for the case. A lawyer by 
 the name of McDonald represented Nee and these other men. He 
 
 5 
 
made a statement in the presence of the arresting officer. This officer 
 Sullivan, testifies here before your Honors to the effect that the things 
 that Mr. McDonald stated to Sheenan as a reason why this case should 
 not be prosecuted were true, andj^he further added that the principal 
 witness in the case was dead. You are not here to try the case itself. 
 You are here to pass judgment upon the conduct of the official. He may 
 have made a^mistake. That is not your concern. It is the motive that 
 prompted the conduct that concerns you. 
 
 For the moment, however, let us touch the facts of the case. 
 Sullivan says that there were two boards off of this cellar way, not 
 sufficient for a man to pass through. When they were taken off he 
 does not know. Sullivan says there were Moxie boxes piled up on 
 the inside of cellar 18 where these boards were taken off so that an 
 entry could not be made. The day clerk says that the Moxie boxes 
 were not there.. I know nothing about that. I am telling you, how- 
 ever, what Sullivan told this man Sheenan, and that is the thing that 
 controls here. What were the facts he presented to Sheenan? Officer 
 Sullivan says that he told him these facts and that the case ought not 
 to be prosecuted. 
 
 Now, the young man nolled the case. The only place on earth 
 where it can be claimed that Mr. Pelletier came in contact with that 
 case is that one of the officers of the parole board, wrote Mr. Pelletier 
 and said if this man. Nee, plead guilty or was convicted, they would 
 revoke his parole. That letter it will be charged, I assume, is the 
 notice which Pelletier had of the pendency of this case. And yet, as 
 practical men, must we not know that, in the multitude of things, 
 this could not be a matter which would remain in his mind ? Therefore 
 when you come to this case the only incident there is in reference to 
 it is that Mr. Pelletier did not discharge Fred Sheenan because he took 
 the action indicated. To urge Pelletier’s ouster due to this item is to 
 confess the desperate length to which these gentlemen are willing to 
 go to gain their point. Not a suggestion in the record that even squints 
 at improper motive, directly or indirectly, that touches Mr. Pelletier. 
 Is it not clear to your Honors that Mr. Allen is driven hard for facts, 
 when he will seize upon a circumstance of this character? Bear in 
 mind that this case is plucked out of thousands, and is here urged as 
 ground for ouster. Those of you on this Bench who in your younger 
 years may have filled the office of District Attorney, harken back to 
 your own experience and answer to your conscience if you could have 
 escaped the harsh penalty of ouster if the facts in the Nee case are to 
 be taken as demonstrating official malfeasance or misfeasance in 
 office. 
 
 We pass to the Stone case. Your Honors will remember that this 
 is a case brought under Paragraph 3: — “permitted assistant district 
 attorneys to nol pross cases which should have been prosecuted.” 
 What are the facts? Mrs. Stone testified. Also a witness by the 
 name of Officer Harvey testified. It was shown that an attorney by 
 the name of Green represented the defendant. A divorce suit was 
 pending. Some time in June the divorce was granted — at least, it was 
 so represented to Sheenan. In other words, if you recall, a divorce had 
 
 6 
 
been brought on the ground of adultery with the name of the woman in 
 the case unkno\\Ti. When the case came on to be tried at nisi it de- 
 veloped that the name of the woman was known. The tryer of the 
 fact said, “You will have to amend your pleading and insert the name.” 
 Afterwards, the case came on, thirty or sixty days later, and was dis- 
 posed of. In Jime, at the first trial, when ever^^hing was disposed of 
 to aU practical intents and purposes, the attorney representing the 
 defendant came and discussed this matter with Mr. Sheehan, told him 
 that the case was disposed of, and that the parties in interest had no 
 further concern in the criminal prosecution. 
 
 This case would not be here but that Nathan Tufts’ name appears 
 in the papers — Shaving no more to do with Joe Pelletier in the way of 
 improper conduct than I had. Tufts had written a letter saying that 
 before an3rthing was done with this case he would like to be heard; he 
 represented Mrs. Stone, Tufts wrote — and said that he would like to be 
 heard before anything was done with the criminal case. There was 
 no secrecy, no subterfuge about it. When the Attorney Green talked 
 to Mr. Sheenan and Mr. Sheenan found Mr. Tufts’ name in the papers, 
 Mr. Sheenan wrote Mr. Tiifts, or called him on the phone, and Tufts 
 wrote a letter saying that he had no. further interest in the case. 
 
 If your Honors please, there is no suggestion of sinister or im- 
 moral conduct on the part of Fred Sheenan in this matter. Of course, 
 Mr. Pelletier had nothing whatever to do wdth the case, and the case, 
 as I say, would not be here except that Nathan Tufts’ name is found 
 in these papers, because there are himdreds of cases which have been 
 dismissed involving divorce suits wherein adultery had been charged, 
 or something of that kind, and no, question could be made of the pro- 
 priety of nol prossing the case. But it is a different thing, if you can 
 touch Joe Pelletier with the name of Nathan Tufts. Here again, I chal- 
 lenge attention to the labored effort to involve Pelletier with something 
 that might indicate unworthiness. It is known of all men that Tufts 
 has been found imworthy. If his name can be coupled with Pelletier, 
 the circumstance may serve a desperate cause. Mark you, Pelletier 
 had nothing to do with the matter one way or the other. It is a demon- 
 stration that Fred Sheenan did nothing improper. The magic word 
 Tufts, in the opinion of these gentlemen, is sufficient to supply all 
 links in evidence. Tairff the air wdth a name and thereby destroy 
 Pelletier! However, we are here in a Court of Justice not a school of 
 scandal and suspicion. Facts must be presented before a man’s good 
 name can be besmirched. Mr. Allen cannot make out his case in a 
 Court of Justice by the constant reiteration of the names — Tufts and 
 Corcoran. These flaming names of scandal and reproach may serve to 
 create suspicion in the shallow mind, but never will they suffice to bridge 
 the gap in a Court of Justice. 
 
 The fourth and last case wherein deputies are concerned is the 
 Mancovitz case. This happened, unfortunately, to be a brother of 
 David Mancovitz, who was an assistant. Dave Mancovitz never 
 had a thing to do with his brother’s case in the district Attorney’s 
 office, and there can be no question about that, because there is no 
 word of evidence in reference to it, and I say that it is one of God’s 
 
 7 
 
providences that we are here before a jury of lawyers who will not sub- 
 stitute suspicion for fact. 
 
 What are the facts about this case? The charge is that he, Pelle- 
 tier, did not discharge Gallagher because of Gallagher’s misconduct in 
 .the presentation of the Mancovitz case to the grand jury. Fortunately, 
 testimony in the Mancovitz case before the Grand Jury was taken in 
 shorthand and transcribed. Gallagher recommended that this man 
 be indicted for the possession of stolen goods and not for breaking and 
 entering. Now, I have read the testimony. I assume that the Attor- 
 ney General has also read it. I do not know what his experience has 
 been as a public prosecutor. I have had that experience. Some of you 
 gentlemen may have had it. Any man who has had experience as a 
 public prosecutor and who reads that record, will know why Gallagher 
 did not indict this man for breaking and entering. It is a demonstra- 
 tion, and you have the evidence preserved for you, and I am not going 
 to take time to analyze it, because, if Gallagher had done otherwise, 
 if he had indicted this man for breaking and entering, Mr. Attorney 
 General, there would have been left open a debatable fact, whereas 
 having indicted him in eight coimts, for which he could have been sent 
 to the penitentiary for forty years, he indicted him on the only evi- 
 dence which W'ould have made it an absolute certainty that there was 
 no escape for the man. 
 
 Now, it is said, by subtle innuendo that GaUagher stated to some 
 of the Grand Jurors that this was Dave Mancovitz’s brother. It de- 
 veloped in the trial of the case before the Grand Jury that Mancovitz’s 
 name was mentioned. Now, whether some juror said, “who is this 
 Mancovitz’’? — or whether Gallagher voluntarily made the offer or sug- 
 gestion, I know not ; but I say to your Honors that no bit of testimony 
 in this case so demonstrates the strained effort to make innuendo fur- 
 nish the Hnk which is essential in this case than that evidence which 
 was introduced out of the lips of Grand Jurors. “How did GaUagher 
 present his evidence?’’ “He pounded the table and he spoke in a loud 
 voice’’ — so the witness said. “Did he teU you that he was Dave Man- 
 covitz’s brother?’’ “Yes.’’ AU of which indicates so the hint is sug- 
 gested that they were trying to favor this brother of Mancovitz ; when, 
 of course, if corruption was in the saddle, if devUtry was afoot, there was 
 a practical way to do it, and that was not to present the case at aU to 
 the Grand Jury. 
 
 You read the evidence of the man Evans, to whom Mr. GaUagher 
 spoke in a loud tone and was emphatic and get your own reaction. 
 Every witness was subpoenaed that was asked for. One witness, 
 Levine, was not subpoenaed. But was his name submitted to GaUagher ? 
 No. But Campbell, the complaining officer, said he told all that 
 Levine could have testified to. Do you remember that testimony? 
 Campbell stated, “I testified for thirteen pages. I covered every fact 
 of my evidence, ever3rthing was developed that I had.’’ And yet it is 
 said that Gallagher, a lawyer untouched and unscathed in this good 
 court excepting by inneundo and suspicion — ^was guUty of error, never- 
 theless we find that this lawyer presented every fact presented to him. 
 The only other thing charged is that the case was not tried as quickly 
 
 8 
 
as, in the judgment of these gentlemen, it should have been. He was 
 indicted here March, 1920, and was afterwards indicted in New York 
 March, 1921, and sent to the penitentiary from that State. But in the 
 interim of time it is urged that there was time to have tried him here, 
 and therefore Joe Pelletier must be ousted from office for not trying 
 him. How many times the case was listed for trial, what the occa- 
 sion was for the continuances, is not shown; but your Honors are 
 to translate every presumption in favor of guilt. Fortunately, that is 
 not the law. 
 
 It is said that this man Mancovitz, the brother of the accused, 
 was destroying evidence. What happened? A man by the name of 
 Evans went to Mancovitz y>ne day. He had lost a Masonic charm, and 
 he said to Mancovitz, “My wife feels badly about it, and I would 
 like to get another one;” and Dave Mancovitz, because his brother 
 was the guilty person, said, “I will give you S15 and you can go and 
 buy another one.” On another occasion he called up the officer at head- 
 quarters to give the man some of his property back. There is no 
 question of the property going out of the community^ or an 3 rthing of that 
 kind. There was nothing of that kind, no attempt to destroy evi- 
 dence. A man by the name of Sobel wrote a letter to Mr. Pelletier — in 
 February, 1921, about his property, and he says that within a few 
 weeks after that he got a telephone call from Mr. Pelletier’s office wherein 
 Mr. Pelletier said, “You can go and get your property.” That was 
 after evidence came to Mr. Pelletier to the effect that the man had 
 been sent to the penitentiary from New York; and one of the citizens 
 here had property which was tied up which it was unnecessary to keep 
 any longer. Those are the facts. 
 
 Those are the four cases — Nee, Soracco, Stone and Mancovitz — 
 with which PeUeiter never had the slightest connection and concern- 
 ing which there was never complaint made until this complaint here is 
 filed as to the conduct of his deputies. 
 
 I now come to the Shute case, and I must not spend so much 
 time on these cases. The temptation is to dwell too long, and I must 
 be brief, because my voice is not so important in translating these 
 cases as that of Senator Reed’s, and I must hasten. I come to the 
 Shute case. Do you remember the Shute case? That is the case 
 where a man by the name of Shute was charged with having despoiled 
 an old lady over there in Bangor, Maine. 
 
 We have to now translate ourselves back six or seven years to 1915, 
 because out of the 80,000 cases that have passed through the office of 
 this man since he has been in this position for over twelve years, they 
 have been able to dig up out of all this vast multitude, twenty-one cases, 
 and one of these is the Shute case 1915. 
 
 As I have said, it was a case involving a money transaction between 
 a man who was buying and selling stocks, and an old lady who lived 
 in Bangor. Now, what are the facts as they come to Mr. Pelletier? 
 You are not here concerned in passing judgment upon Shute’s guilt or 
 innocence. You are concerned here with the question as to why did 
 Pelletier take the action that he did, and was he actuated, as they claim, 
 by improper motives? 
 
 9 
 
Now, what are the facts? Patten, a lawyer who theretofore had 
 lived in Maine, now practicing law in Boston. He came before Mr. 
 Pelletier and said he wanted to present a certain matter to the Grand 
 Jury. As soon as Mr. Pelletier discovered what it was, he said, “Why, 
 that must be the matter that George Thompson, a lawyer practising 
 law in Bangor, has talked to me about and said that he — Thompson — 
 wanted to be heard if the matter was presented. Evidently Thompson 
 had told Pelletier something about this being a matter wherein they 
 might want to use his process for the collection of a debt. In any 
 event, the evidence here discloses — and I beg your Honor to rivet your 
 attention on this point — the evidence here discloses, from Patten’s lips, 
 that Mr. Pelletier said, “Are there any civil suits pending?” Why did 
 ihe say that? Because George Thompson had doubtless talked to him 
 about the case. Is there anything wrong about that? Oh, yes, sinister, 
 bad. But, you are not going to say so without proof. Pelletier said, 
 “Are there civil suits pending?” Now, what is the proof? Patten says 
 to you on the witness stand, “I told him there was a small suit pending 
 down here in Boston where I had attached some money.” “I attached 
 some money in the hands of some brokers, $400 or $500.” And, on 
 being pressed he says, “There may be a little suit in Maine of $500.” 
 Patten said they were inconsequential cases, and he so stated to Pelle- 
 tier. Now, that is the testimony that it is admitted went before Pelle- 
 tier. Now, get this point: George Thompson, Pelletier’s friend, had 
 come down here and said, “I want to be heard.” And yet Patten, who 
 was practically a stranger to Pelletier, secured an indictment because, 
 although he told Pelletier there were certain civil suits pending, they 
 were inconsequential and of no moment. Now, where do you find at 
 the inception of this case, anything abnormal or unnatural in the con- 
 duct of Pelletier? Nothing. Now afterwards what develops? It 
 develops that the litigation pending in Bangor involved not $500 but 
 $25,000.00. Oh, it may be said, the equities involved in the properties 
 covered by this litigation were inconsequential, but I am trying to visual- 
 ize the situation from the standpoint of Pelletier. When he discovered 
 that he had been deceived, that he had not been told the truth, and 
 then when the attorney for the other side came to him, and made his 
 statement, doubtless to the effect that it was an unfair thing for the 
 prosecuting attorney’s office to use his process in the manner that it 
 was being used — to handicap litigants who had serious litigation in 
 court, under these circmnstances the case was nol pressed. 
 
 I say to your Honors this, — that when you come to study this case, 
 you have to inject something based on suspicion and inneundo and not 
 upon facts, because there is no basis of fact in this case of improper 
 conduct and the worthy Attorney General knew that, and so he and his 
 assistants discovered a mare’s nest; they discovered the changed record. 
 This is the case wherein the young man Kjellstrom testified and where 
 the clerk has been unfortunately compelled to come on the witness 
 stand twice to admit an error upon the part of one of his deputies. 
 Remember, this is the case that was before the Joint Legislative Com- 
 mittee. It was stated that Pelletier said that the case was dismissed 
 June 24th rather than November 24th and they went over and found 
 
 10 
 
it was November 24th, and they came back afterwards and found it 
 was changed to June. Who changed it? Did your office change it, 
 Mr. Attorney General? If a change was made it is just as fair to 
 assume that some enemy of Mr. Pelletier’s manipulated the record, 
 as it is to charge that Joe Pelletier did it. There is no evidence that 
 even squints of his doing it. But, witnesses say that it was done. 
 Ergo, Pelletier did it. If it was done, Mr. Allen, you know, as much 
 about it as we do. 
 
 Why was that ever introduced in this case? A mistake was made, 
 of course, by the clerk, who took the date for the certified copy frorn the 
 back of the indictment. Why was this injected? Because it was con- 
 ceived in the mind of Patten and translated to the realms of suspicion 
 and innuendo, that an attempt had been made to borrow some money 
 about November 24, 1916, and if the nol pross was made coincident with 
 the borrowing of money up there in Maine, ah, then, Pelletier got money. 
 Therefore, when it is claimed the date was changed back to June, it was 
 to conceal his tracks. It now develops, however, that the nioney trans- 
 action occurred in November, 1915, and not in November, 1916, long 
 before the matter ever came to Pelletier and the whole matter falls 
 aborning. But, Mr. Allen must stick to the corruption of the records, 
 although there is no rhyme or reason in the matter. Something was 
 wrong, and Pelletier must have done it. A lot of smoke is raised about 
 this case. When you come, however, to the naked facts there is nothing 
 that remotely reflects misconduct. This statement is reduced to a 
 demonstration in the light of Patten’s testimony. Such was the verdict 
 of the Joint Legislative Committee. Such has been the verdict of the 
 good people of Suffolk County when Joe Pelletier’s enemies urged this 
 item on the stump — and your Honors, I confidently rest in the conviction 
 tha't your verdict will be in harmony with the action of the legislature 
 and the mass judgment of the people. 
 
 Now, we come to the Prendergast case. You recall that in 1916 
 a lady by the name of Bennett testified she was assaulted by a young 
 man by the name of John Prendergast, and according to her story 
 treated in an outrageous manner. Let us analyze just briefly this case, 
 because it is from her lips that we must analyze the facts that wiU be 
 translated into your minds for judgment. This witness says that if 
 John Prendergast had come to her at any time within four weeks after the 
 event and had apologized, she would have forgiven him, and the case 
 would never have been filed. This witness. Miss Bennett, criticizes 
 Joe Pelletier for doing that which after three or four years have passed, 
 she was willing to do within ten days after the event. Look at the 
 evidence ! What does it disclose ? Volume 7 is where the record in this 
 case is found, and you wiU find in two places there where she said, 
 “If he had come to me as a lady, I would not have pressed the case.’’ 
 This was when the event was hot upon her. This was when all the 
 outrage was fresh in her mind. This is the case, mark you, that in 
 February, 1917 went before the Joint Legislative Committee. Some 
 time prior to that, Miss Bennett fell into the hands of this same 
 young man, Kjellstrom who testified here about the docket entries, and 
 he passed her on to Mr. Perrin, and from that time on to the present, 
 
 11 
 
you find Miss Bennett as an avenging angel after Mr. Pelletier. She 
 was in Mr. Pelletier’s office in November of 1916. She said to him 
 that she had been followed and pursued by Prendergast’s brother. 
 She said she was not so angry at the event as she was at what fol- 
 lowed the event, — Prendergast’s brother pursuing her all summer. 
 Just why this strange story of pursuit is detailed by Miss Bennet is 
 one of the inscrutable items of evidence in this case. The statement is 
 so extraordinary that it of necessity arrests attention. 
 
 Let us analyze this fact, because you have to get Mr. Pelletier’s 
 position when this woman was before him, and why he took the action 
 that he did. She said that John Prendergast’s brother pursued her aU 
 one siunmer, that, like a shadow, every night throughout the summer 
 months he followed her, annoyed her, pestered her, watched her. But, 
 there was no complaint to any police officer. How did she know it was 
 John Prendergast’s brother? Now, this, I think, is important, because 
 it tests the woman’s attitude. She says, “Officer McDonald, my 
 brother-in-law, told me that it was Prendergast’s brother.’’ Do you 
 remember that? And yet. Officer McDonald, at page 870 of this 
 record, says that he never knew that Prendergast had a brother. It 
 is in volume 7, page 870, where McDonald testifies. She testified 
 at page 842. Pelletier is to be criticised because' he did not take stock 
 in a story that your Honors on this record must discredit. 
 
 I say, if your Honors please, here is the testimony of this woman, 
 erratic, not dependable. Now, what is the height of Pelletier’s offend- 
 ing? What is the height of it? He said to this young woman, “Oh, 
 be merciful to him; he never did anything VTong before; he doubt- 
 less was drunk; let him have a chance; he never did any wrong before; 
 he has not done any wrong since; the case is pending over him. This 
 is his first offense. Be merciful.’’ Now% after three years and after 
 w'aiting and studying this young man, Pelletier nol pressed that case, 
 and he is charged with improper conduct, and the only improper con- 
 duct in God’s w^orld that you gentlemen wdll be able to find, when 
 you search this record, was not money, not political influence, not 
 favoritism, but, the promptings of a kindly heart to save this young 
 man as a member of society. , Ah, you say, that is not for him to decide. 
 It is for him to press the law. 
 
 Will your Honors oust a man from office when his only sinning is 
 on the side of kindness and reflects as pure and kindly an impulse as 
 ever emanated from the human heart? Oust him for that? No, you 
 will not. In my judgment, you will not. Criticise him, censure him, if 
 you please, but when you oust Joe Pelletier for doing that thing you oust 
 him not because of immoral or venal or arbitrary conduct, but because 
 he W'as overly generous. If the man has a fault that is it. 
 
 Pausing upon this lady’s. testimony one word more. Miss Bennett 
 stated, “Nobody ever said anything to me about this man Prender- 
 gast being a good man but Mr. Pelletier.’’ Pelletier is the only one 
 that ever said a good word for him. Yet she had to admit that Father 
 McLeod had come to her and begged her to be merciful, that he was a 
 good boy. She had to admit that Mr. Murphy, the commissioner, had 
 been to her and begged of her to be merciful, that he was a good boy. 
 
 12 
 
She went down to Martin Ryan’s place and took issue with him because 
 he had said in 1917 that she was being influenced by those people who 
 had charge of the legislative committee and she went down there to 
 upbraid him for it. You saw this witness on the witness stand. I am 
 not saying anything about the witness that is luifair or unjust, but I 
 am talking about Joe Pelletier’s visuaHzation of the witness and of her 
 story, and of the strange story that she told of this man’s brother fol- 
 lowing her. And, of course, it was not his brother, — if anybody fol- 
 lowed her. She said, “I could even tell the color of his fiair and that 
 he had gray running through it,” and he followed her in the night time. 
 
 Study the Prendergast case from aU angles and nothing can be 
 found that points to an unworthy purpose on the part of Pelletier. 
 For three and a half years he held this charge over this young man. 
 The young man had never been arrested before and during three and 
 a half years went straight. He was of hiunble parentage. There is 
 no money here; no poHtical influence; no favoritism; no law>^er with 
 a puU. Simply a first offender, who proved by his conduct that he 
 was not a bad man. Joe PeUetier sought to save him from a prison record. 
 Miss Bennett herself was willing to save him imtil she fell under the 
 sinister influence that seeks to destroy this defendant. 
 
 I come now to a group of cases where we find Corcoran’s name. I 
 have spoken of one where Tuft’s name appears, wherever there is a 
 case that Corcoran or Tuft or Coakley’s name appears, there is offense, 
 that is in the mind poisoned by suspicion. I rejoice, although a stranger 
 to this city, I rejoice that this man who is now my client has the great 
 good fortune to be tried before a bench of lawyers, or a jury of lawyers, 
 who have skilled understanding and will not translate the merest shadow 
 of suspicion into facts. The case in which we are here concerned is 
 back in 1916, and was filed against Mary Fuller. I wonder if the 
 Attorney General then knew Mary Fuller as Brownie Kennedy? I 
 w^onder if Mr. Dodge did. I wonder if Mr. McCarthy did. No ! But 
 Joe Pelletier must have! Oh, yes, Pelletier must have. They say 
 that Mary Fuller was Brownie Kennedy, and that is all there is to 
 this case. What are the facts? Officer Campbell made an arrest of a 
 woman and a man in a two-room apartment in 1916. Corcoran was 
 her lawyer. He fumi^ed the bond, or his office did. Concerning 
 which Pelletier knew nothing. An officer went in and foimd a man in 
 an undressed condition in this woman’s apartment. They were seized, 
 taken to the lower court, fined, appealed, the charge being keeping a 
 house of iU fame. No evidence — and you remember the case, no evi- 
 dence of bargaining, no e\ddence of circumstances that should be 
 proved in cases of this character. And now Pelletier upon the facts as 
 they came to him nol prossed that case. Any money ? Any influence ? 
 Any favor? Nothing in God Almighty’s name, gentlemen, but the 
 simple fact that Corcoran’s name is connected with it and the woman 
 turns out afterwards to be the famous or the infamous Kennedy woman. 
 Concerning which Pelletier had as much knowledge as any one of your 
 Honors as far as this record goes, and your Honors are guided by that. 
 That is your chart. And that disposes of the Mary Fuller case. This 
 case would not be here at aU if it were not that this scarlet name appears 
 
 13 
 
in the record. This fact alone is offered to besmirch Pelletier. It is 
 not proof. 
 
 Now, I come to these cases in which Mr. Coakley’s name appears 
 and the first is the Szathmary case, — no, the first one is the Tripp case, 
 1915. You remember this case. Mr. Tripp, a citizen of Boston. Mr. 
 Stinson, the lawyer, appeared in the case for Tripp. Now, this is back in 
 1915. Coakley had made a couiplaint to Mr. Pelletier in reference to 
 the conduct of a man by the name of Tripp, connecting him with a 
 woman by the name of Bowser. It is said in the testimony of Tripp 
 and Stinson that the matter involved adultery and fornication. When 
 you come to study the record I think you will find that a tort was 
 involved. Coakley had made a complaint to Pelletier — of course the 
 fact that it was Coakley implies suspicion at once, but your Honors 
 will not so decide — that a man by the name of Tripp was having some 
 illegal relations with a girl by the name of Bowser. Mr. Pelletier sent 
 for Tripp. I assume that there are at the Boston Bar a hundred lawyers 
 — I don’t know whether Mr. Dodge ever did it, I don’t know whether 
 Mr. McCarthy ever did it, but a hundred lawyers have talked with the 
 prosecuting attorney and had him do exactly the thing that is here in- 
 volved. He called this man in, and he talked to Tripp, and Tripp dis- 
 closed that he was a substantial man, that this really was a bad girl, 
 and that she was trying to blackmail him, that she was trying to abuse 
 Mr. Pelletier’s office. What did Pelletier do? He said to Mr. Stinson 
 that he would have nothing to do with the matter, but he said, ‘T 
 advise you to go to Mr. Coakley and explain the matter.” Oh, the 
 fact that he said, “Go to Coakley” although he had told them that 
 Coakley was the man that brought the case to him, that circumstance 
 itself damns Pelletier. But why should it? Why should it? Where 
 can you find the error and the misconduct? I beg your Honors’ best 
 thought, and I ask you when you go to your council chambers to think 
 of this suggestion: You must take each of these cases and view them 
 in their own perspective. There is no possibility of a common con- 
 spiracy. There is no possibility of that. Mr. Tripp and his lawyers 
 went to Mr. Coakley’s office, and there they discussed the matter with 
 Coakley. The case before Pelletier was not further pressed. And then 
 what follows? An action for tort was filed. When you calmly study 
 the record all that appears is that Coakley complained to Pelletier of 
 Tripp. Pelletier conferred with Tripp. After hearing Tripp’s story he 
 stated he would take no action. That’s your story. If any lawyer’s 
 name in this court room was connected with the case but the name of 
 Coakley the matter would not be here. Is it possible that a man’s 
 character can be touched, his reputation ruined, his whole life blighted 
 by such methods? I beg of your Honors to remember that that is the 
 first Coakley case that the record discloses. 
 
 The next is the Szathmary case, where we go back to 1920. The 
 Szathmary case was a divorce case. That is found in volume 13. You 
 remember the young Isreal Szathmary, not a very worthy figure, as I 
 thought of him when he appeared on the witness stand. Judge Sulli- 
 van, a fine upstanding gentleman, as I viewed him, came and testified 
 to your Honors in reference to this case. The case is still pending. 
 
 14 
 
Now, what follows? In November of 1919 or 1920, as the case may be, 
 Mr. SuUivan — Judge SulHvan — ^went to see Mr. PeUetier and there 
 complained because the case was not being prosecuted. He said to 
 Air. Pelletier — and I think this significant, if you will read Judge Sulli- 
 van’s testimony, and of coiu*se you will — “I was not satisfied because 
 this man had not paid this woman sufficient money and was not pay- 
 ing her sufficient money, and the case ought to go forward. ’ ’ Then PeUe- 
 tier tinned to the wife of this young man and said, “Mrs. Szathmary, 
 what do you want us to do with this case?’’ And she said, “Please do 
 not prosecute it. Leave it as it is. We are living together, and I wiU 
 not get my support if he is taken away.’’ That is the record of the 
 case. Now, where does Coakley figure in the case? Young Fardy, 
 the attorney for these people, had said that he had gone to Mr. Coakley 
 and said, “If this case is going to be tried I want you to help me try it. 
 Judge Sullivan is on the other side, and I do not feel myself capable of 
 competing with him, and I want your assistance. What will be your 
 fee, Mr. Coakley?’’ Fardy said Coakley stated, “Whatever you figure 
 that my services are worth, or your clients can afford to pay. It is 
 all right with me. You can fix that up yourself.’’ 
 
 That is the testimony. He want back to his client and charged him 
 a fee of S2000, SIOOO of which he said he would give to Mr. Coakley if he 
 ever had to call on him. And here is the paradoxical situation we find : 
 the only opportunity Coakley could have to get money was to have 
 the case tried, and Pelletier was the man that continued the case and did 
 not put the case to trial! Strange conspiracy! Extraordinary be- 
 tray^ of public trust! Pelletier is damned when Coakley makes a fee. 
 Also he must suffer when he keeps Coakley from making a fee. How- 
 ever, what do these gentlemen care for logic. Put Coakley in the pic- 
 ture and every gap is filled. All presumptions disposed of! 
 
 The Charlotte Broad case, is a case if your Honors please, in 1916, 
 wherein this young woman who was then in New York and a man 
 by the name of Waxman, a citizen of this town, had had prior relations. 
 After breaking off his relations with the Broad woman he married and 
 was living happily and contentedly. This girl was pursuing him. 
 Now Coakley came to Pelletier’s office and made a complaint that 
 the woman was trying fo blackmail Waxman. And wasn’t she? Can 
 there be any doubt about it? Can there be any question about it? 
 Mr. Pelletier wrote her a letter. This is the case where this lawyer 
 Stebbins appeared. The letter from Pelletier to the Broad woman in 
 New York shows what took place. Stebbins went to New York and 
 wrote the answer to the letter for her wherein he said for her, that if 
 Mr. Pelletier would indicate to her wherein she had done wrong in 
 tiying to get this money from Waxman, she would be glad to talk with 
 him. Shortly after that she wrote PeUetier another letter wherein 
 she acknowledged that this man had never promised to marry her; that 
 she was trying to get money out of him on account of the letters he wrote 
 her, admitting the blackmail plan; that as far as she was concerned she 
 would abandon it. Now that is all the contact that PeUetier had 
 with this case. If it were not that Coakley’s name was connected with 
 it, wherein would anybody suspicion error? 
 
 15 
 
There remains but one case to which I desire to call to your Honor’s 
 attention. That is the Piscopo case in 1917. Mr. Pelletier, Mclsaac 
 and Webber were partners in a civil law business, coincident with the 
 time that Mr. Pelletier was conducting the office of District Attorney. 
 Mr. Piscopo was then a citizen of Boston, who had lived here and 
 reared a family of six children whom he abandoned in 1911. From 
 that time on litigation developed between Piscopo and his wife, she 
 fighting for herself and her children. He was evidently a man of large 
 means. Some time in 1915, or 1913 rather, proceedings were filed here 
 in the Probate Court by the wife for separate maintenance. Along 
 in that period Mr. Piscopo who knew Mclsaac, and because Mr. 
 Mclsaac had done business for him, met Mclsaac on the street and 
 they had some talk about Piscopo’s affairs, and Piscopo employed 
 Mclsaac to go forward and help him look after his matters. Mclsaac 
 took charge of the matter in the Probate Court and defeated the wife’s 
 claim there. Divorce libels were filed up in New Hampshire — if I am 
 possibly mistaken about where the divorce was granted I want it cor- 
 rected, but in any event a divorce was finally granted in another juris- 
 diction. Coincident with the divorce being granted alimony settle- 
 ments were adjusted, four hundred thousand dollars passing, two 
 hundred thousand dollars to the wife, and two hundred thousand dollars 
 in trust for the children. Mclsaac conducted these negotiations, and 
 finally the matter is settled, long prior to February 7, 1917. Two weeks 
 or two months — the evidence /is not clear because the deposition says 
 in one place several months, and in another place several weeks — the 
 man was in Mclsaac’s office discussing about his fee. At that time 
 he says Mr. Pelletier was there. He says that Mclsaac said he would 
 charge him $35,000. When he objected to the amount — Pelletier, 
 he says, suggested that he was running a hotel here and they might 
 have the hotel watched. That is the siim total of this charge of the 
 attempt on the part of Pelletier to use his office to extort money in civil 
 proceedings. Now what follows? Here we must analyze and pass 
 judgment — your Honors will have to pass judgment upon the testimony 
 of this man and as to its believable nature. Piscopo, says the threat 
 was made some weeks prior to February 3 or 7, and upon that date this 
 man went to Mclsaac’s office and paid him $5,000. No suggestion at 
 that time to Mclsaac: “This money is paid now and I hope you will 
 
 let my hotel alone.’’ No suggestion of going to his waiters down there 
 and telling them he was ateid of young boys and girls coming in and' 
 his license taken away from him. No evidence of warning his help 
 touching the question of watching against a job being put up on him. 
 No suggestions of reporting to the licensing board, or to the police, 
 or anything of that kind. No statement to his private counsel in 
 the other jurisdiction. No statement anywhere, or any place of this 
 question of his fear and fright over Pelletier’s threat. In February he 
 paid $5,000. In May he comes in and pays $14,000 in cash and $2,000 
 in a note, making a total fee of $21,000. I submit your Honors in view 
 of the amount of business involved, and in view of the responsibility 
 of going over these trust papers, I say to your Honors in my judgment 
 as a lawyer the fee involved was not exorbitant, as none of these gentle- 
 
 16 
 
men would assert. And coincident with the reasonableness of the fee 
 and the conduct of this man who says he never opened his mouth to a 
 living hiunan being aU this time about this threat, while this matter was 
 before the Bar Association and when this matter was before the legis- 
 lature committee, and when it was in the campaigns, and in no place 
 does he say anything excepting two months before the time his deposi- 
 tion was taken in 1921. On the utterly baseless story — a story that 
 would not support proof of a promise to pay — you are asked to destroy 
 all that this man hold sacred — ^his good name — ^his fair reputation. 
 
 Joe Pelletier may have had faithless friends — ^that is, assumed 
 friends — ^men who sold him time and again behind his back. Why, 
 sirs, up in Washington there are types of men who make a business of 
 holding themselves out as “fixers” of people within the various De- 
 partments of Government. The last man to learn of this vile practice 
 is the man most concerned — ^the man who is being mistreated. It is 
 possible that there are lawyers in Boston so lost to all sense of honor 
 that they have traded upon Joe Pelletier’s name. However, as to this 
 I challenge your attention to the basic fact that there is no evidence in 
 this record that connects Pelletier with any such lawyer. I hold no 
 brief for Dan Coakley. If he has abused Joe Pelletier’s friendship 
 then indeed, he is a vile wretch. However, whatever the fact may 
 be as to what Dan Coakley may have done there is no evidence in 
 this record that connects Pelletier with Coakley, and this directly or 
 indirectly. 
 
 Your Honors, that is as far as my review will go of this record. 
 Senator Reed will take up the balance of these cases. In closing may 
 I just be permitted to say this one word: I feel it has been a great 
 privilege as a lawyer — one who has led a very^ active and full life as a 
 lawyer — to have had the privilege and opportimity of coming before this 
 great Court. We have been treated with rare courtesy and kind- 
 ness. This is an important case — ^many angles are involved — ^many 
 things that go deep into the soul of our human nature. I have an abiding 
 confidence in the integrity of this great profession of ours. I have an 
 abiding confidence in the fine spirit of this Court. No matter w^hat 
 suspicions may have been created by the testimony; no matter what 
 false atmosphere may have been engendered by malice and envy; 
 I have an abiding confidence in the fact that this great Court will 
 be guided solely by the facts of the record and not by the innuendo of 
 coimsel, and when this Court finds the facts as I have sought to show 
 them in the ten cases that I have reviewed, and as Senator Reed will 
 show in the cases that he is to review, an utter lack of that kind of 
 probative evidence that is essential in a court of justice, I say, when you 
 find as I believe you will, an utter lack of evidence, I know that the 
 traditions of this great court will be followed. It is a court revered by 
 lawyers throughout this country. I am grateful for having had the 
 opportmiity of being before it. 
 
 MR. REED: I was out when the court made its announcement 
 as to time. If I had been here I would have asked General Boyle to 
 
 17 
 
have taken up the time imtil recess. If I began no\y there will be a 
 recess at eleven o’clock. 
 
 RUGG, C. J.; Quarter past eleven, Mr. Reed. 
 
 MR. REED : Then I will talk a while and there will be an adjourn- 
 ment for dinner, and cut my remarks in two twice. I was just won- 
 dering if I might further impose on the good nature of the court and if 
 we could have our recess a little bit early now and then I could proceed 
 until one o’clock. 
 
 RUGG, C. J. : Very well. We shall be very glad to do that. 
 RUGG, C.J.: Mr. Reed. 
 
 CLOSING ARGUMENT BY MR. REED 
 
 MR. REED: If your Honors please, I am about to perform my 
 last duty in this case. Lest I forget to do so later on, I|now thank the 
 Coiirt for most courteous treatment, for some rather unusual courtesies 
 extended to me, I am sure because I am a stranger in this part of the 
 world and imfamiliar with the practice of Massachusetts. 
 
 For the closing of the case without putting on even a word of 
 evidence, my associate. General Boyle, and myself take the full re- 
 sponsibility. We acted upon our judgment that no case had been made, 
 and that, under the rules of law and under a fair construction of the 
 evidence, we could safely repose the judgment of this case in this great 
 tribunal without dignifying the prosecution by evidence in rebuttal. 
 
 If I had been trying this case before a jury without a judge to guide 
 the jury in the law, a different conclusion would have been reached ; but 
 in this tribunal, where the Judges know the law, where their long 
 experience enables them to analyze evidence and to determine its 
 weight, I approach the case with the utmost confidence that, at its end, 
 upon the evidence adduced by the State, there can be but one result, 
 and that the dismissal of these charges. 
 
 In preliminary, let me state to your Honors what I conceive to be 
 the law of the case. It is, first, that each of these charges must stand 
 by itself; that one cannot be brought in aid of the other; that there 
 must be a separate determination of each charge; and that you cannot 
 take the sum total of twenty-one failures and add them together to make 
 a general case. You cannot accumulate enough zeros in a lifetime 
 to make an integer. Every case that has been cited to your Honors 
 during this long trial on matters arising during its progress has, with- 
 out exception, indicated that the character of this case, whether it be 
 civil in form or otherwise, is nevertheless criminal in its nature and 
 must be determined by fixed rules of law, among which are that the 
 charge must be laid, and the charge must be proven as laid. This is 
 not, as the Court has already said, an inquisition. This Court does 
 not, in my judgment, sit as a board of censors. It sits here to determine 
 whether, under the law, upon the specific charge made, a case has been 
 made out, and whether that case is sufficient to warrant a removal from 
 office. 
 
 18 
 
In this latter conclusion I am supported, I think, by the whole 
 general line of authorities, but I desire to call attention particularly to 
 one case , — Andrews v. King, 77 Maine, 235. I quote: 
 
 “In special courts established for the trial of officers alleged to be 
 unfaithful, such as courts of impeachment and courts martial, we 
 believe it is the universal practice for the court to pass first upon 
 the truth or falsity of each charge before passing sentence. This 
 must be the course, otherwise the court might pronounce sentence 
 where no one charge was believed by a majority of the court. 
 There might be as many charges as there were members of the 
 court and no one charge received the assent of more than one mem- 
 ber, yet that member vote to sentence on account of his belief 
 in the truth of that one charge which all his associates believed 
 to be false. If each member did so there would be sentence with- 
 out conviction and without guilt. Such a result would be mon- 
 strous, hence the practice of first ascertaining and declaring whether 
 the court agrees or concurs upon any one charge as proved. We 
 think it may be assumed, in the absence of specific directions, that 
 the Legislature intended that a special tribunal should follow the 
 course so long and generally followed by the common law courts 
 and special courts with similar duties. The same reasons for such 
 a course certainly exist.” 
 
 If that authority be not convincing, and if that reasoning be not 
 conclusive, nothing I can say would add to it, and I pass from that 
 phase of the argument. 
 
 The second rule to which I desire to caU attention, to which I 
 shall have occasion to refer in the course of my remarks later on and 
 which furnishes, in my humble judgment, the yardstick by which is 
 to be measured the greater part of the evidence in this case, is the 
 doctrine of circumstantial evidence. If the law be as I contend, then 
 there is an utter failure to make out a case. I shall take some of 
 my limited time to read the wisdom of the court, which wiU be 
 superior to anything I may utter. First, I call attention to Common- 
 wealths. Webster, 5 Cush., .the opinion written by the great Chief Justice 
 Shaw, whose learning I need not eulogize and upon whose greatness 
 I need pass no encomiums. Speaking of circumstantial evidence he 
 said: 
 
 “The first is, that the several circumstances upon which the 
 conclusion depends must be fuUy established by proof. They 
 are facts from which the main fact is to be inferred ; and they are 
 to be proved by competent evidence and by the same weight and 
 force of evidence, as if each one were itself the main fact in issue. 
 
 Under this rule, every circumstance relied upon as material is to be 
 brought to the test of strict proof;” — 
 
 19 
 
I interrupt to say that, as I go on, I shall demonstrate that the majority 
 of this evidence rests upon imagination and conjecture, the connecting 
 link being supplied out of inflamed imagination. I quote further: 
 
 “The next rule to which I ask attention is, that all the facts 
 proved must be consistent with each other, and with the main fact 
 sought to be proved. . . . Therefore, if any one fact necessary 
 to the cone usion is whoUy inconsistent with the hypothesis of the 
 guilt of the accused, it breaks the chain of circumstantial evidence 
 upon which the inference depends; and, however plausible or ap- 
 parently conclusive the other circumstances may be, the charge 
 must fail. . . . Another rule is, that the circumstances taken 
 together should be of a conclusive nature and tendency, leading 
 on the whole to a satisfactory conclusion, and producing in effect 
 a reasonable and moral certainty, that the accused, and no one 
 else, committed the offence charged. 
 
 “It is not sufficient that they create a probability, though a 
 strong one, and if, therefore, assuming all the facts to be true which 
 the evidence lends to establish, they may yet be accounted for 
 upon any hypothesis which does not include the guilt of the accused, 
 the proof fails. It is essential, therefore, that the circumstances 
 taken as a whole, and giving them their reasonable and just weight 
 and no more, should, to a moral certainty, exclude every other 
 hypothesis.” 
 
 Apply that to the bank account evidence. 
 
 I quote from Commonwealth vs. Jejffries, 7th Allen, 548: [Reading] 
 
 “To render evidence of collateral facts competent, there must 
 be some natural, necessary or logical connection between them and 
 the inference or result which they are designed to establish.” 
 
 In Barrett vs. Bruffee,, 182 Mass., page 230, citing Commonwealth vs. 
 Jeffries, the same rule of logical inference has been applied to civil 
 cases: [Reading] 
 
 “The question in this class of cases is whether the collateral 
 fact sought to be proved is so closely connected with the question 
 at issue that an inference may fairly be drawn from the collateral 
 fact of the conclusion sought to be established.” 
 
 In Lydon vs. Edison Electric Illuminating Company, 209 Mass., 532, 
 it was held : [Reading] 
 
 “The fact that he exercised care n going down as it is shown 
 that he did by the fact that he had got safely by the wire, and by 
 the fact that the spur on his right foot was driven into the limb, 
 does not remove the manner in which the accident occurred from 
 the. field of conjecture or warrant an inference that at the instant 
 of the accident he was in the exercise of due care.” 
 
 20 
 
In Brennan vs. Keene, 237, Mass., 556: [Readii^g] 
 
 “In the field of pure speculation one conjecture may be as 
 
 near the truth as any other.” 
 
 Apply that to the bank deposit evidence. 
 
 I hope my manner will not be offensive to your Honors. It is 
 simply a part of me, and I need not again express my great respect 
 for the court. My apparent dogmatism of manner is inseparable 
 from my natiue. And yet, like many other bits of circumstantial 
 evidence the conclusion to be drawn is very unsound. 
 
 I could file long briefs upon this question, but I am content. 
 
 I now pass to another doctrine which I assert lies at the very 
 foundation of the law, and if it be applied in this case, then there must 
 be a holding that all that the District Attorney did in these cases was 
 within his sound discretion, and that the exercise of his discretion 
 cannot be inquired into. Unless it can be clearly proven that he 
 did not act within his discretion, but that he went outside of it for some 
 evil purpose, then no case exists. I quote from Commonwealth vs. 
 Wheeler, 2d Mass., 172: [Reading] 
 
 “I observe in the bar, the nolle prosequi is alleged to have 
 been entered by the advice of the Court of Common Pleas. Cer- 
 tainly, the court is not legally competent to give any advice on this 
 subject. The power of entering a nolle prosequi is to be exercised 
 at the discretion of the attorney who prosecutes for the government, 
 and for its exercise he alone is responsible.” 
 
 I quote very briefly from Commonwealth vs. Tuck, 20 Pickering: 
 [Reading] 
 
 “It is perfectly clear that a nolle prosequi may be entered at 
 the pleasure of the prosecuting officer. Such is the constant 
 practice. It mayjDe that the indictment is defective and he may 
 wish to prociue another. He may discover that the evidence will 
 turn out different from what he expected and he may wish to vary 
 the charge to make it conform to the proof. Or he may have good 
 reasons for not wishing to prosecute at all. There may beinnu- 
 , merable causes for discontinuing the prosecution; of all of which 
 he must judge, upon his official responsibility. In many cases 
 the discontinuance may operate to the prejudice of the defendant, 
 but never to the injury of his legal rights. It is not to be presumed 
 that this officer wiU violate his duty or act oppressively.” . . . 
 
 “The power to enter a nolle prosequi is held by the Attorney 
 General virtute officii. He exerts it upon his official responsibility. 
 The court has no right to interfere with its exercise. They can 
 only judge of the effect of the act when done, and of the legi con- 
 
 21 
 
sequences which may follow from it. They will take care that it 
 shall not operate to the prejudice of the defendant’s rights.” 
 
 In Commonwealth vs. Smith, 98 Mass., page 10: [Reading] 
 
 ‘Tt is perfectly clear that a nolle prosequi may be entered 
 at the pleasure of the prosecuting officer before a jury is impanelled. 
 The reasons for the practice are there stated, and they are numerous 
 and decisive.” — 
 
 That is referring to Commonwealth vs. Tuck, 20 Pickering. 
 
 “Nor can we see that there are any valid objections to it. Such 
 a mode of disposing of an indictment can in no way inipair or affect 
 the rights of the accused party in any future prosecution for the 
 same offense. That it will not be resorted to capriciously or op- 
 pressively, so as to work any undue hardship on defendants, is 
 sufficiently guarded against by intrusting the exercise of the power 
 to the sound discretion of an officer of the government, whose 
 function it is to watch over and direct the course of criminal prose- 
 cutions, and who can have no motive to use the authority vested 
 in him in a manner inconsistent with a due regard to the rights 
 and interests of all parties.” 
 
 Again, in Lizotte vs. Dloska, 200 Mass., 327: [Reading] 
 
 “The District Attorney had the absolute power to enter a 
 nolle prosequi upon his official responsibihty, without the approval 
 or intervention of the court. He alone is answerable for the 
 exercise of his discretion in this respect. It is presumed that he 
 will act under such a heavy sense of obligation for enforcement of 
 the law and sensitive consciousness of important public duty that 
 no wrongful act will be committed.” 
 
 To the same effect see Commonwealth vs. Wheeler, 2 Mass. 172, and 
 Commonwealth vs. Tuck, 20 Pickering, 356. But, let me read a little 
 further from that case, because it seems to touch another phase of this 
 proposition: [Reading] 
 
 “Entry of a nolle prosequi is final so far as the particular case 
 is concerned. It does not require the presence nor the consent 
 of the defendant.” 
 
 We had a great deal of evidence introduced here that defendants had 
 not been consulted. 
 
 “Therefore, the agreement of the prosecuting officer, that the 
 indictments or complaints should not be further prosecuted and 
 that an entry upon the records of the court should be made to that 
 effect at an early sitting, was tantamount to the completion of the 
 service which the plaintiff contracted to render in defending Farra 
 
 22 
 
and Goyeski in the ciiminal proceedings pending against them. 
 It is not to be assumed that the word of a prosecuting officer will 
 be broken respecting the disposition of cases, in instances 'where 
 the whole matter lies in his O'^m hand.” 
 
 It seems there have been other prosecuting attorneys who have said to 
 attorneys having cases before them, that they would dismiss the case. 
 
 In State vs. Smith, 49 New Hampshire, 155, going outside of this 
 state: [Reading] 
 
 “No question is made by the counsel on either side, as to the 
 general discretionary power of the prosecuting officer, in this state 
 to enter a nolle prosequi in ordinary indictments, instituted in the 
 name of the State. This power, such officer, exercises virtute 
 officii, frequently before a jury is impanelled, and sometimes, while 
 the case is on trial, before the jury, with the consent of the re- 
 spondent, and sometimes, after a verdict is rendered against the 
 prisoner. 
 
 It may be that the prosecuting officer, finds his indictment de- 
 fective in form, or substance, and, that he may wish to procure a 
 better one, or, he may discover, that the evidence will not sustain 
 the charge as alleged, and a change may be requisite to conform 
 to the actual proof. There may be various reasons for discontinu- 
 ing the prosecution, all of which he must determine, being con- 
 trolled by w^ell settled principles of law and practice and a sound 
 legal discretion. It is not to be presumed that this officer will 
 voluntarily consent to any discontinuance which will materially 
 injure the rights of the prisoner, or that he will violate knowingly 
 his official trust or in any way, act corruptly or oppressively.” 
 
 Again in 56 New Hampshire, 137, State vs. Tufts: [Reading] 
 
 “For obvious reasons the functions of the court and prosecut- 
 ing officer are entirdy distinct. The court cannot usurp the duties 
 of his office and say what cases shall and shall not be prosecuted. 
 The law has lodged that duty wdth officers selected for that 
 special purpose, and who are responsible for the manner in which 
 they perform those duties. . . . He is not required to prosecute 
 an indictment if there is no proof to sustain it, or so little evidence 
 that the chance of convicting is not such as to justify the attempt. 
 Nor is he required to prosecute cases where ‘they are pursued in a 
 spirit that renders them injurious to the public morals.’ ” 
 
 I call special attention to that clause, because it shows that this 
 discretion of the District Attorney extends so far that when he con- 
 cludes it is better for the public morals, better for the public welfare 
 not to prosecute a case, in the exercise of his discretion, he may refuse 
 to proceed with the case. 
 
 23 
 
I read from 30 Federal Reporter, page 21, In re Eaves; 
 
 “It is all important to good government, and the public 
 interests, that an officer who exercises important judicial functions 
 should be free in thought and independent in judgment, when he 
 acts in the administration of justice and the enforcement of the 
 law. The course of justice would be impeded, and the efficiency 
 of the commissioner would be greatly impaired, if his freedom of 
 action was restrained by continual apprehensions of removal from 
 office on account of honest official mistakes and errors of judgment, 
 or by judicial caprice or by the clamor of individuals excited by 
 personal prejudices and hostility. 
 
 “In this civil proceeding which so seriously affects the reputa- 
 tion and other interest of the respondent he is entitled to all the 
 presumptions of law as to innocence which are allowed on criminal 
 trials.” 
 
 State vs. Hastings, 37 Nebraska: ^ 
 
 “As to whether an impeachment is to be regarded as a civil 
 action or as a criminal prosecution for the purpose of the produc- 
 tion and the quantum of proof to warrant a conviction it may 
 be safely asserted that the decided weight of authority in this 
 country and England, ij indeed there exists a diversity of opinion on 
 the subject, is that impeachment in that respect must be classed as 
 a criminal prosecution in which the state is required to establish 
 elements of the charge beyond a reasonable doubt.” 
 
 In the Impeachment of President Johnson it was declared: 
 
 “To say that a high public officer with good motives and with 
 'an honest intent to obey though he mistake the meaning of the 
 statute can be found guilty of a high crime or misdemeanor which 
 shall subject him to the heaviest punishment which can fall upon 
 a public man in high office is to assert a doctrine never before 
 heard in any court of justice.” 
 
 In Mahen vs. Rosser, 24 Okla. 588 and again in Phillips vs. State, 181 
 Pac. 713, this doctrine is laid down: 
 
 “In a case to remove an officer the jury must believe from the 
 evidence in the case beyond a reasonable doubt that the officer 
 is guilty of the charge. The degree of proof required is the same 
 as required in the trial of a misdemeanor.” 
 
 State vs. Bush, 208 S. W. 609 : 
 
 '“Proceedings under the ouster should never be brought unless 
 there is a clear case of official derehction. This is a very drastic 
 statute and should not be invoked except in plain cases that could 
 
 24 
 
be certainly proved. There is no excuse for instituting an ouster 
 suit for purposes of inquisition and as a fishing expedition.” 
 
 Storey on the Constitution, s. 798, after quoting from decisions; 
 
 ‘‘The foregoing decision also held that ouster proceedings were 
 civil. Nevertheless, it indicated that the degree of proof should 
 be to a high degree of certainty, greater than that which ordinarily 
 prevails in civil proceedings. 
 
 ‘‘It is the boast' of English jurisprudence and without it the 
 power of impeachment would be an intolerable grievance; that in 
 trials by impeachment the law differs not in essentials from criminal 
 prosecutions before inferior courts. 
 
 ‘‘The same rules of evidence, the same legal notions of crimes 
 and punishments prevail.” 
 
 A'tidrews vs. 'King, 77 Me: 
 
 ‘‘The proceeding is adversary or judicial in its character, and 
 where the statute is silent, the substantial principles of the common 
 law must be observed. . . . 
 
 ‘‘The removal cannot be made, unless the alleged cause in 
 fact exists, and such existence should be ascertained and declared, 
 as the legal basis for the sentence of removal. Such is the imme- 
 morial practice in prosecutions in the common law courts.” 
 
 Com. vs. Kane, 108 Mass. 423. Masonic Trustvs. Boston, 201 Mass, 
 at 326: 
 
 ‘‘The foundation of the rule of evidence that a person acting 
 as a public officer has been duly appointed to the office which he 
 assumes to exercise, is that all acts done by what appears to be 
 public authority are presumed to be rightly done unless the con- 
 trary is proved.” 
 
 ‘‘AH acts done . . . are presumed to be rightly done unless the 
 contrary is proved.” 
 
 Bank of the U. S. vs. Dandridge, 12 Wheat. 64, 69: 
 
 ‘‘The law itself for the purpose of strengthening the infirmity 
 of evidence, and upholding transactions intimately connected 
 with the public peace, and the security of private property, in- 
 dulges its own presumptions. It presumes that every man, in his 
 private and official character, does his duty, until the contrary 
 is proved.” 
 
 There is one further proposition of law to which I call attention. 
 It is the law of conspiracy. I shall not pause to more than state the 
 point. Conspiracy consists in the meeting of two or more minds to 
 do an unlawful act or to do a lawful act by unlawful means. There 
 must be a meeting of minds as to the common purpose, a guilty knowl- 
 
 25 
 
edge. It is true that, a conspiracy being established, the meeting 
 of the minds in the common cause having been shown, it is not then 
 necessary that each individual member of the conspiracy shall be 
 acquainted with each of the acts of the fellow conspirators, because the 
 conspiracy having been shown from that center flows out the responsi- 
 bility for the individual acts of the several conspirators. But there can 
 be no conspiracy inferred from individual acts unless the conspiracy 
 has been shown, although of course it is true that the individual acts 
 may in themselves constitute such a chain of circumstances as to prove 
 the conspiracy; but there must be evidence, direct or circumstantial, 
 to establish the common meeting of the minds to accomplish a common 
 purpose. All these principles of law, I take it, your Honors have long 
 been familiar with, yet in this vast field of legal learning it is always 
 necessary to take our bearings when we come to consider any particular 
 journey we are to undertake. 
 
 And now, iflyour Honors please, I desire, if I can, to l^y before the 
 Court very briefly a picture of this case. My associate, Mr. Boyle, 
 has well said that if your Honors are to hear this evidence and weigh 
 it, as you must, it is almost necessary that you transport yourselves in 
 your mind from this bench to the District Attorney’s office. I presume 
 there are but few men, who have not themselves filled a position of that 
 kind, can appreciate its difficulties. Your office crowded in the morn- 
 ing with complainants, many of them set on by improper motives, many 
 of them mistaken, some of them desiring to use the office for some 
 sinister purpose, some of them seeking revenge, sortie of them seeking 
 to use the office for the collection of money; all of them come present- 
 ing their cases and holding back the real reason. The Court in the 
 meantime is busy trying cases, and your attention is divided there. 
 You have but a few minutes to examine each case in the ordinary course 
 of business. In a city like this, with the vast ebb and flow of business 
 through the prosecuting attorney’s office the personal attention of the 
 District Attorney is a physical impossibility. 
 
 Mr. Pelletier has been continuously in office since 1909. He 
 has disposed of over 80,000 cases of record, and probably three times 
 that number which never passed beyond preliminary inquiry. The 
 State asserts that he was guilty of misconduct in 20 instances out of the 
 80,000. The earliest charge is 1915; the latest charge, with the excep- 
 tion of five cases trivial in their character and solely in charge of dep- 
 uties, in 1918. These cases handled by the deputies were the Stone, 
 Mancovitz, Soracco, Nee and Szathmary cases. In addition to this 
 there is the charge about political speech. Apparently neither in- 
 dustry nor mahce was able to discover the slightest defect in Mr. Pel- 
 letier’s conduct during the first six years of his official career or, w’ith the 
 inconsequential exceptions named, during the last three years thereof 
 The picture present^ by the prosecution is therefore of a man uncor- 
 ruptible, efficient, honest for six years, suddenly becoming and remaining 
 for three years a bad, wicked and vicious man, and then just as sud- 
 denly, and without apparent reason, returning to his original state of 
 virtue. This notwithstanding the fact that Corcoran’s activities 
 
 26 
 
seemingly have reached their climax during the last three years and 
 that the much abused Coakley was all the time at large. 
 
 The Attorney General brought charges upon thirty-two separate 
 and distinct cases. Many of these cases embraced four or five separate 
 and distinct charges. In each instance he declared upon oath that the 
 matter charged was an act of wilful malfeasance, misfeasance or non- 
 feasance in office. In five cases, the Emerson Motors, the Daniels, the 
 Metropolitan Motors, the Albert T. Smith and the Emery, he asserts 
 that PeUetier brought or threatened to bring criminal proceedings and 
 in the alternative 
 
 t 
 
 (1) that he proceeded without sufficient evidence, or 
 
 (2) that having sufficient evidence he failed to prosecute. 
 
 • The Attorney General further charges in paragraph 30 that Pel- 
 letier, having sufficient evidence to prosecute, has failed to do so; 
 in paragraph 33 that Pelletier has nol pressed cases which should have 
 been prosecuted; in paragraph 32, that having sufficient information he 
 has failed to prosecute cases. Many of the cases specified are brought 
 under two or three of these alternative or contradictory charges. In 
 substance the charges are that Pelletier started an investigation, or 
 prosecution, and that not having carried the prosecution through to a 
 final judgment, it followed that 
 
 (a) he had begim an investigation or prosecution without sufficient 
 evidence, and is therefore guilty, or in the alternative 
 
 (b) that he had sufficient evidence and failed to prosecute, and is 
 therefore guilty. 
 
 Tested by this philosophy, how stands the learned Attorney Gen- 
 eral? He, within ninety days brought under oath in the most solemn 
 form charges in 32 specific cases. He has dismissed II of these charges, 
 more than one third of the total. He has offered excuses for the dis- 
 missal of but two — ^the Cobb and Smith case. His excuse in one 
 instance being the sickness of a single witness; and in the other the 
 refusal of the alleged injured party to testify imder oath. If, there- 
 fore, we apply to the Attorney General the rule he seeks to apply to 
 Pelletier, it follows that the Attorney General either brought at least 
 nine complaints without sufficient evidence, or, having siifficient evi- 
 dence, faded to prosecute, and he is therefore in nine instances tarred 
 with the same stick with which he would besmear Pelletier for acts 
 selected from 80,000 cases disposed of during a period of twelve 
 years. Do I charge him with bad faith? No. But I use his act 
 to illustrate the defects of his philosophy in this solemn proceeding 
 before this great court. Nine separate times he has done acts of 
 exactly the same character which he alleges against Pelletier as a 
 reason for his removal. Moreover, in the instance of Pelletier, he had 
 in some cases proceeded no further than a preliminary investigation, 
 a thing absolutely necessary if a District Attorney is to gain any informa- 
 tion whatever. In the other cases, indictments were returned by grand 
 
 27 
 
juries who often act improvidently. In this case the Attorney General 
 himself made charges and solemnly swore to their truth. The Attorney 
 General seeks to draw from the mere fact of the initiation and prose- 
 cution and its subsequent abandonment an inference of a guilty motive. 
 Shall we apply that doctrine to the Attorney General, or to his initia- 
 tion and dismissal of the 11 cases referred to. To do so would be mon- 
 strous, but to apply it to Pelletier would be more monstrous, for the act 
 of the Attorney General occurred in one case. The dismissals were 
 within 90 days after bringing the charge, while the act of Pelletier ex- 
 tended over 7 or 8 years of time and concerned cases selected from 
 80,000' cases and involves all cases of accidents which occur in the ordi- 
 nary course of justice in handling the vast flood of business flowing 
 through the criminal courts of the land. 
 
 Of the 80,000 cases pending before Pelletier less than 5,000 were 
 actually tried before juries, or by any possibility could have been so 
 tried. There are approximately 200 trial days in the year. The 
 disposition of 400 or 500 cases by trial crowds a court to the limit. 
 The inevitable result is that the greater number of cases must be dis- 
 posed of by pleas of guilty, by filing, and by nol pros. Out of the 
 80,000 cases heard during the seven years, and which embrace all the 
 charges against Pelletier, it is alleged he wrongfully or mistakenly 
 dismissed, or failed to prosecute in some thirteen or fourteen instances. 
 Let me call attention, although the court will take judicial notice of 
 these records, that there was pending — I wiU call attention to but one 
 year, but I should be glad to leave as a part of my argument this tab- 
 ulation, there were pending at the beginning of 1921, 1548 cases. 
 That has some tendency to keep a man busy. 7,711 cases were begun 
 in the year 1921. 592 cases were actually tried. 1,724 cases were nol 
 prossed. 439 cases were filed before trial. There were pleas of guilty 
 in 3,135 cases. 1,678 cases were placed on file after the ca^es were 
 disposed of. There were 789 cases admitted to probation. I am quoting 
 these figures on the assumption that the court will take judicial notice 
 of the court records themselves. But if they are not in evidence, and if 
 they cannot properly be presented here, then I simply call your Honors’ 
 attention to these figures as illustrative of the business of the District 
 Attorney’s office. 
 
 The disposition of practically 9,000 cases in a single year makes 
 it impossible for the District Attorney either to be personally familiar 
 with all these cases or to give to any of them, except the most import- 
 ant, any prolonged personal consideration. 
 
 The only charges brought since December, 1918 are, the Mancovitz 
 case, still pending, the defendant being in prison in New York; the 
 Szathmary case, still pending at the solicitation of the injured wife, the 
 husband in the meantime furnishing the wife and children with sup- 
 port; Stone and Nee, handled exclusively by Mr. Sheenan; and the Sorac- 
 co case in charge exclusively of Mr. Mancovitz. In addition to these 
 there is the political speech of which more hereafter. The youngest case, 
 which is over three years old, and the earliest case which is over seven 
 years during this period of three and one half years stretching from 
 July, 1915 to December,^ 1918, complaint is made as to fourteen cases, 
 
 28 
 
four of them seven years old ; six of them six years old ; two of them five 
 years old; two of them three years old. 
 
 Since the date of these twelve charges Pelletier has been elected 
 twice. He has been elected once since the date of the last four charges 
 I am discussing. All the graver charges have been thrashed out on 
 the hustings. Many of these charges I do not know. The record 
 does not disclose them. But it does disclose there was an investi- 
 gation by a legislative committee in the 1917 session. Substan- 
 tially all of these charges were made before the Bar Association nearly 
 three years ago. They were practically abandoned. They were 
 conducted by Pelletier’s enemy, who was afterwards convicted of 
 receiving stolen papers from Coakley’s office, and whose case rests 
 in this court. They were finally, by some mysterious influence, sud- 
 denly revived to form the basis of the Attorney General’s information. 
 The record furnishes indubitable proof of the activities of Mr. Cabot, 
 who originally preferred these charges before the Bar Association, 
 after a first attempt to bring them before this court who declined to 
 issue an order of notice. Although not a lawyer he sat at the Bar Asso- 
 ciation hearings as I recall the evidence. He employed attorney Cole- 
 man to procure an affidavit from Bond the stock salesman for Metro- 
 politan Motors, and it is this same Coleman who supervised the affi- 
 davit, or at least carried the affidavit of Matches to the Bar Association, 
 and accompanied Matches to Boston while Matches gave his testimony 
 before the Bar Association. He is today the representative of Matches 
 in his criminal proceedings. 
 
 It may be frankly confessed that it is not fully and conclusively 
 proven that Godfrey Cabot is the real instigator of these charges, 
 but the evidence as to his participation therein is a million times more 
 direct and a million times stronger than any evidence produced against 
 Pelletier. These ancient cases are dragged forth from the catacombs 
 of the past. Many witnesses have disappeared, papers and documents 
 are lost, and memory of the occurrences largely obhterated from the 
 minds of honest men and only preserved and kept fresh and growing 
 in the brains of witnesses controlled by selfish and sinister motives. 
 
 Such, sirs, is the groundwork upon which the structure of this case 
 rests. 
 
 And by what kind of witnesses is it sustained ? In thirty-six years 
 of practice I have never seen such an array. Let me call the roll. 
 I will not call it the rogues’ gallery, although it would not be a misnomer. 
 
 The convict Matches — admittedly testifying to mitigate or escape 
 punishment for his crimes. 
 
 Perry — the lawyer, whose association with automobile thieves, 
 it is alleged, was so intimate that Pelletier should be removed froni office 
 for not sending him to the penitentiary. Perry — now resting under 
 indictment and disbarment proceedings, the while in the tender care 
 of the Attorney General. 
 
 Emery — ^who debauched and stole his friend’s wife, wasted his 
 mother-in-law’s fortune, possesses two or three habitats, engaged in 
 numerous questionable ventures, and who is now, by the undisputed 
 evidence, resting under charges made to the Attorney General. 
 
 29' 
 
Peters — of whom it is said Pelletier should be removed from office 
 for failure to prosecute ; Peters, who attempted rape upon the wife of 
 his friend, who stood swaggering in the witness box and sneeringly said 
 that the husband would not dare to strike him. 
 
 Dorothy Cot4 — ^who lured a husband from his wife and children, 
 who brought him to verge of bankruptcy, who despoiled him of his 
 fortune, and, in her insatiate greed, took the ring from his mother’s 
 finger, who threatened him with exposure and in the process brought 
 suit to compel him to further disgorge his property. 
 
 McCallum — ^the lawyer who lent himself to Miss Cote’s plan, 
 yielded to her blandishments so that he became a social visitor at 
 her flat and an associate of her female companions; who forgot his 
 obligations as a lawyer and disclosed the confidences of his client; who, 
 at her suggestion and because of her siren influence, sent a copy of the 
 letter of demand on the Locomobile Company to Lawrence, who was 
 to be the victim of the concerted blackmail. No court analyzing 
 the evidence, it seems to me, could escape the conclusion that the letter 
 was sent to Lawrence for but one purpose, and that, to use the language 
 of the street, to compel him to “come across.’’ 
 
 Garland — McCallum ’s chaperone at the Cote flat but who came 
 forth so unscathed that he now appears at once as the accuser of the 
 District Attorney and as the counsel and proctor of Perry, under indict- 
 ment and under disbarment proceedings. Garland — ^the exaltation 
 of whose character is further manifested by his eavesdropping perform- 
 ance as a listener-in on a telephone conversation. 
 
 Stebbins — ^retired lawyer who only takes cases for friends, repre- 
 sentative of Charlotte Broad, the working girl, who divided her time 
 between gay parties at elegant hotels in Boston, the Hghts of Paris, the 
 moimtains of Switzerland, and the society of Stebbins; Charlotte — 
 who never asked for money but accepted loans from her lawyer friend. 
 Stebbins, who can remember the loan and the parties ni Boston but has 
 really, forgotten whether he met his charming friend while he was 
 travelling in Europe. Stebbins — ^who, knowing the character of his 
 client and his friend, institutes a groimdless suit upon a pretended 
 promise of marriage against a man who has been married for three years 
 and is living a decent life. Stebbins — ^who contrives a letter to be 
 written to Pelletier so full of falsehood as to shock his unscrupulous 
 client, who within three days time repudiates it in toto and substan- 
 tially confesses the scheme of blackmail. This man is brought forward 
 to accuse Pelletier, who, clearly and plainly, balked him in as bold 
 a piece of attempted blackmail as ever disgraced a lawyer or defaced 
 the records of a court. Suppose Charlotte Broad — and I throw this 
 in by way of illustration — ^had not recanted; suppose Pelletier had 
 lost the letter of confession: this case would now be pressed against 
 Pelletier as one of the strongest in the catalogue. 
 
 Bond — agent for the sale of the Metropolitan Motors stock who 
 made an affidavit at the instance of Coleman, the lawyer for Cabot, who 
 also assisted in framing the testimony of Matches in the Emerson Motors 
 case. 
 
 30 
 
Buckley — who confessedly paid the blackmail levied upon Acker- 
 man & Brummel, who afterwards asserted an unfoimded and ridiculous 
 claim for $65,000 for commissions in addition, to a salary although his 
 written contract specifying the salary had yet a year to run. Buckley 
 — who was detected in conspiracy with one of the former blackmailing 
 employees, who surrendered his pretended claim at the mere hint 
 that his conduct was under surveillance by the authorities, although 
 he was then represented by so good a lawyer and so gallant a soldier 
 as Judge Logan, under whose advice he acted. 
 
 Papineau — the unspeakable, who lived in idleness at the instance 
 of his wife’s mother, who tamely submitted to the seduction and theft 
 of his wife, who, while surrendering the custody of his own child, 
 brought suit to recover the illegitimate offspring of his wife and her 
 paramour, who settled his claims for damages for $1,000, and who 
 then, concealing the facts, represented himself to Coakley as a wronged 
 and injured man. Papineau — ^whose story is a mass of contradictions 
 which could only have emanated from a brain degenerated by the vile 
 habits of a debased life. 
 
 Bernstein — ^who told various stories upon the witness stand utterly 
 at variance with his testimony before the Bar Association. 
 
 Myer Berman — whose religious zeal restrained him from riding in 
 any wheeled vehicle on Saturday but whose avarice permitted him 
 to keep a disorderly house not only on Saturday but all the rest of the week 
 and, on every day save the sacred Saturday, to introduce the 
 female habitues of his resort to lascivious male visitors. 
 
 Sam Berman — who, inheriting the instincts of his father, became a 
 partner in his disreputable business, who falsified his ownership interest 
 to the Licensing Board and repeated his falsehood to this Court, and who 
 was finally convicted as* a sharer and partner in the lascivious loot. 
 
 Louis Berman — who spent his days in pursuit of higher learning 
 amidst the classic halls of Harvard College and his nights keeping the 
 books of this hotel brothel. 
 
 Such is the character of some of the witnesses of the State who 
 constitute the chief props to the rickety structure erected by the 
 Attorney General. 
 
 Now I present you, in contrast, the attempted besmirchment 
 of honorable attorneys. If Pelletier is held guilty, then Francis M. 
 Carroll and Amos Stephens of the New York Bar are equally guilty in 
 the Emerson case. If Pelletier is held guilty, then Charles H. Innes 
 and Henry G. Wells are equally guilty in the Perry case. If Pelletier 
 is held guilty, then, according to the testimony, Daniel J. Gallagher, 
 named as a co-conspirator, is equally guilty, and Major Thomas L. 
 Walsh is seriously, if not criminally, involved in the Emery case. If, 
 in the Peters case, PeUetier is held guilty, then Henry F. Hurlburt, 
 who arranged the settlement and paid the money, is particeps criminis ; 
 and Charles F. Choate, James A. Bailey, Thomas D. Lavelle, and 
 another attorney too exalted to have his name even mentioned, advised 
 the exact course of conduct taken. 
 
 There is also the general charge that Pelletier retained in his 
 employ incompetent or dishonest deputies. This is a reflection upon 
 
 31 
 
his own present deputies, — Daniel M. Lyons, Frederick M. Sheenan, 
 William S. Kinney, Henry P. Fielding, David Mancovitz, and Daniel 
 W. Casey. It is likewise a reflection upon all of their predecessors 
 in office, and it is imsustained by a single word of credible evidence. 
 
 The lawyers specifically named as co-conspirators are Carroll, 
 GaUagher, Innes, and the lawyers necessarily involved are Wells, 
 Walsh, Hurlburt, Choate, Bailey, LaveUe, and the unnamed attorney. 
 All of these attorneys have hitherto been of unimpeachable reputation, 
 some of them being numbered not only among the greatest lawyers in 
 Boston but the greatest in the United States. I stand in their defense 
 and I hurl back every insinuation against their honor. But I repeat: 
 if in these cases this man is to stand convicted, then they too must have 
 upon their garments the smoke of the fire. 
 
 Moreover the veteran clerk of the Superior Criminal Court and 
 his equally veteran deputy find the integrity of their records challenged 
 and their capacity, if not their integrity, brought into question. The 
 stenographer who took the testimony before the Grand Jur>^ finds 
 his notes questioned and an insistence that is remarkable indulged in, 
 that he shall write in the name of Pelletier instead of the name of 
 Kinney. 
 
 The desperate straits in which the Attorney General found him- 
 self is manifested in these acts and especially by his conduct in placing 
 Mr. Carroll upon the stand as his own witness, thus vouching for his 
 integrity, and afterwards, for the mere purpose of securing the admis- 
 sion. of what must be, I think, regarded as the perjured testimony of 
 a convicted felon, naming Mr. Carroll as a co-conspirator, and this 
 while the echo of Assistant Attorney General McCarthy’s words, “I 
 make no implication against Mr. Carroll,” were still reverberating in 
 this chamber. 
 
 Now, if your Honors please, let me for a moment analyze, the 
 theory upon which the evidence of conspiracy rests. I assert, in my 
 humble judgment, that if the theory followed by the State in this case 
 as to proof of conspiracy, is allowed, no man is safe. All this evidence 
 was admitted by your Honors upon the promise of the State that it 
 would furnish the connecting link. Instead of first furnishing the 
 evidence of the meeting of minds and the common purpose of the 
 concerted action, they began at the outskirts and proved that A said 
 to B something about C. Their method then was to follow that by 
 showing that C did the thing, and then whether the thing he did was 
 natural or just and right or not, the claim was made that that established 
 the conspiracy. 
 
 Let me state that concisely. The method of the introduction of 
 evidence and evidently the theory of the State, was this, that if A, in 
 a private conversation, tells B that he controls C and that he can, by 
 reason of his control, induce C to do a particular thing, and afterv'ards, 
 C at the request of A does the act that A said he would get him to do, 
 that this makes C responsible for the plots and acts of A and aU other 
 persons with whom they may associate themselves. That has been 
 the method of proof in every one of these cases, if your Honors please, 
 in every one of them. Where does it lead ? The theory is at war with 
 
 32 
 
the law and with common sense. If it were adopted, no man would 
 be safe unless he secluded himself in an hermetically sealed room and 
 cut the telephone communications. 
 
 A simple illustration will suffice: Suppose that A is a lawyer — 
 let us say Perry is a lawyer — and B is a litigant in the court of some 
 judge and a continuance of the case or some particular order is desired. 
 Perry, in disregard of the truth, boasts that he secured the appoint- 
 ment of the judge from his friend the Governor, that he can seciire 
 any favor he desires, well knowing that the thing he has said is false, 
 but also well knowing that the thing he is about to ask can be justly 
 and properly granted, well knowing that any judge would, in the ordi- 
 nary course, upon proper presentation and argument, grant the order. 
 Thereupon he telephones the judge, speaks even in a familiar way, 
 possibly calls him by his first name, and asks for an appointment in 
 regard to the case in question. At a proper and usual time he appears 
 before the judge, presents his reasons for the desired order, and secures 
 it. The judge has done exactly the thing that A said he would do, but 
 he did not do it because of any control exercised over him by A, of 
 for any sinister or corrupt motive, but upon the merits and in the 
 exercise of his sotmd discretion. The years roll by, the litigation is 
 disposed of, the dust of time has settled down and covered the records, 
 the whole is relegated into the limbo of the past. Suddenly it is dis- 
 closed that A charged his client an enormous fee and obtained it, and 
 the client asserts that he paid it because of a supposed influence of A 
 over the judge. It even appears, — ^which is not the case here — that 
 A was engaged in a general conspiracy with a number of other people 
 of corrupt nature, connected with the litigation in question. There- 
 upon the judge is impleaded as a fellow conspirator and held responsible 
 for all the criminal acts, of which he never heard, of which he never 
 dreamed, and mayhap, the connecting Hnk even then is forged by 
 perjured hands, working upon the anvil of hate, driven on by some 
 suspicions in the minds of those who have an interest at heart. 
 
 Write that doctrine into the law of Massachusetts, that a conspiracy 
 can be established in that way, and your Honors will have this case, 
 and from your decision here rendered there wiU flow many other deci- 
 sions. I do not pause to remind you of your duties and responsibilities. 
 No men know it better: And its mere mention might also be taken as 
 an offense. But, it is not so intended. Write into the law of Massachu- 
 setts, this great old Commonwealth where Webster thundered for the 
 Constitution and for human rights, whose hiUs were stained with the 
 choicest blood that ever flowed from patriots’ veins, patriots who fought 
 , for liberty, that upon such evidence and such connection as this, men’s 
 rights and honors may be destroyed, that they may be impaled and 
 crucified, the structure they have builded through the years of their 
 lives be made to crumble into dust, their mothers’ hearts broken and 
 shame be put upon them ! It is not the law. No man’s life or honor, 
 more precious than life itself, would for a moment be safe with such a 
 law. 
 
 Conspiracy, proven in that way, and yet that is the method pursued 
 in substantially every one of these cases, as I shall show your Honors 
 
 33 
 
if my time permits and your patience will indulge me. Conspiracy is 
 the meeting of two minds, I repeat, to do an illegal thing or to do a 
 legal thing by illegal means. It implies the wilful entering into a 
 corrupt scheme. The scheme must be known to a man before he can 
 be a party to it, of course, must be known to both parties or there is 
 no conspiracy. While it can be proven by circumstantial evidence, the 
 circumstantial evidence must exclude every reasonable theory of inno- 
 cence. Nor can this defect of the evidence in particular cases, an utter 
 failure of proof in each specific instance, be pieced out by adding together 
 evidence in other cases, first, because there is no charge of a general con- 
 spiracy between Pelletier and Coakley. In the absence of such a charge 
 that kind of case cannot be presented or that kind of judgment justly ren- 
 dered. Second, the cases in which Coakley was concerned when sub- 
 jected to analysis show that they were not and could not be part of any 
 general plan. They are isolated instances, the inherent nature of 
 which forbids the conclusion of any general scheme or plan. All of this 
 I hope to make more plain as I proceed. 
 
 f And here I intend to pause, with the Court’s permission, to say a 
 word in regard to Mr. Coakley. I do not criticise, far be that from 
 me, but I have been somewhat struck as we went through this case 
 that it seemed that if an act were attributed to Coakley, even from 
 the first, somehow that act always was permitted to come into the 
 case. And yet, if your Honors please, so far as this record stands, 
 and on this record the case must of course be tried, there is no more of 
 a presumption against Daniel H. Coakley than any other man. He 
 has not been convicted of any felonies. There may have been much 
 said about him in rumor, I do not know, but when we come to measure 
 his acts in this case is it not true that we must test him as we would 
 any other member of the bar, and more than that, may we not remember 
 that during these occurrences he, if common rumor is to be credited, 
 
 stood high and did an enormous business, just as Mr. I wiU not 
 
 name other lawyers, many other lawyers stand high now doing a large 
 business. So, approaching the case from that standpoint, — and here 
 I call attention now to the utter failure of proof in regard to certain 
 matters, — it is intimated that Coakley exercised a general influence over 
 Pelletier. The proof offered is that in some eight or ten instances 
 what Coakley sought to have done was done. It is also in proof that 
 in at least two of the cases in which evidence was adduced Coakley 
 failed to get what he wanted. 
 
 In the Tripp case Pelletier, after listening to Tripp’s statement, 
 told him he would not prosecute, and sent him to Coakley to tell Coakley 
 his decision. The case was never prosecuted. The Metropolitan 
 Motors case, in which Pelletier after his investigation told Coakley, 
 Bernstein and Fox, that he would deal with no lawyers in that case 
 and give them no hearing, but would proceed with his investigation on 
 his own lines and in accordance with his judgment, was not brought 
 before the Grand Jury. The record furnishes additional evidence that 
 the Gordon case, in which the Attorney General knows Coakley was 
 counsel, was dismissed, presumably because there was no case. It 
 also shows that the A. T. Smith case, in which Coakley was charged with 
 
 34 
 
being the chief conspirator, was dismissed because Mrs. Smith, the 
 principal witness, refused to testify to facts which would enable the 
 State to proceed. 
 
 There is no evidence as to the number — and this I call attention to — 
 there is no evidence in this case as to the mtmber of times Coakley 
 applied to the District Attorney’s office. He may, as far as the record 
 is concerned, have applied a hundred times and been a hundred times 
 turned down. The State utterly failed to fill that gap or to furnish 
 that proof. All that stands here now is that in some ten or twelve 
 instances, scattered over seven 6r eight years, Coakley got what he 
 wanted, and, as I think we can show, got nothing more than was proper 
 to have given to any lawyer. But mark you, I repeat, the State cannot 
 take the position that Coakley got what he wanted in a majority of 
 instances, or that he exercised any kind of control, for the State utterly 
 failed to prove that these were the only cases he had there, or sub- 
 stantially all of them, and so far as the record is concerned he may have 
 had a hundred or a thousand cases and been rejected in his application 
 on all but these. It is the duty of the State to prove its case by evi- 
 dence, and no inference is to be indulged in a case like this. 
 
 Another inference sought to be drawn is that the failure to prosecute 
 an indictment is in itself evidence of a corrupt mind or heart, or that 
 it is an act of non-feasance warranting removal from office. Two or 
 three of these cases rest upon that bald assumption. And also it is 
 further intimated, at least I get such an intimation from the conduct 
 of counsel in the course of their evidence, that there is something sin- 
 ister in an attorney visiting a prosecutor’s office and asking that 
 criminal proceedings be delayed or discontinued. Apply this rule, 
 and under the evidence 'adduced in this case, already adduced, a 
 large number of attorneys would have been guilty of bad practice, for 
 it is in evidence, it seems indeed to be the custom here, when an indict- 
 ment is about to be brought or when an investigation is on for the 
 attorney of the party who may be accused to ask for a hearing and to 
 get it, — and it is a good practice too. It would save, and has saved, 
 the wrecking of thousands of reputations, of course, of heartaches in- 
 numerable and of injury incalculable. But let us apply the rule of 
 failure to execute an indictment, and where stand we then? 
 
 According to the evidence in this case District Attorney Saltonstall 
 would be culpable, and Attorney Gailand, who appears here both as a 
 prosecutor and purifier, in the most lamentable situation. The evidence 
 discloses that there was pending when Saltonstall took office an indict- 
 ment against Perry, that this was called to the direct attention of 
 Saltonstall by Perry and Garland, who visited him for the purpose 
 of procuring a discontinuance of the prosecution, yet the strange fact 
 remains that the indictment has neither been dismissed nor has the 
 defendant in the intervening months been arraigned. He continues 
 at large under the protection of Garland, who, if we are to exercise 
 common sense and draw the natural inferences visited Mr. Saltonstall 
 to prevent the arrest of his client or to obtain the dismissal of the in- 
 dictment, in order to aid him, among other things, to retain his place 
 as a lawyer at the bar. Consider, if you please, the spectacle of Pelle- 
 
 35 
 
tier being tried for merely permitting Perry to make a statement before 
 the Grand Jury, and the performance here described. With an indict- 
 ment pending against him Perry is able to forestall arrest and arraign- 
 ment, and is brought into this court to give testimony to sustain a 
 charge for the removal of Pelletier, while the Attorney General permits 
 him to be at large and the processes of the law to be unexecuted. The 
 theory of the Attorney General seems to be that he is permitted to dc 
 these things, but that Pelletier is to be condemned for doing the very 
 things the Attorney General himself practices. And I do not say that 
 now to criticise the Attorney General. The trouble with this case is 
 that the Attorney General assumes that whatever Pelletier does is 
 wrong, and brings charges here against him, massing them, painting 
 them as irregularities, yet they are the common practices of the courts 
 and must be the common practice if business is to be dispatched in any 
 sensible way. 
 
 Now, if your Honors please, in the light of what I have said, or in 
 line with it, I come to c^ attention very briefly to this question of 
 bank accounts, and there again the evidence utterly fails to connect 
 an}rthing. I say it boldly, and I say it with all possible emphasis. 
 It fails because, first, there is no relation shown between the acts. 
 It is not shovm in this case that Coakley ever made a check payable 
 to PeUetier, or that he made a check payable to anybody else and that 
 person transferred the money to Pelletier. No scrap of paper exists 
 of that character. No human being has come forward to testify that 
 a penny of money ever passed from one of these men to the other. 
 Though malice with a microscope has searched to find a little speck 
 somewhere to indicate that fact, it was not successful. 
 
 What is introduced in evidence? Two bank accounts. The one 
 of Coakley and the other, of Pelletier, showing certain deposits and 
 withdrawals by each. So far as the bank accounts were introduced 
 they showed substantially the same general course of business through- 
 out the years. Whenever the State was able in this long course of 
 the books to find items in each of the accoimts that bore some resemb- 
 lance in amounts, they spring to the conclusion — purely imaginative 
 — that the money passed from one to the other. I repeat in part what 
 I said the other day. Apply that rule, and I can convict any two 
 men of crime who put into banks any considerable sums of money, 
 or who transact any considerable business, because there will come 
 inevitably days when similar, or somewhat similar sums will be de- 
 posited or withdrawn. And in this case frequently the State for its 
 innuendo has to wait some two weeks or more to find a corresponding 
 item. But what shall we do with this rule of circumstantial evidence 
 which I adduce, that everything is presumed to be innocent until the 
 connection is shown by a change of circumstances, which excludes 
 every other reasonable hypothesis. Apply that to the bank account. 
 What are the reasonable hypotheses ? That a man might have 
 gotten money from ten thousand sources, all of it honest, that he may 
 have paid out money in ten thousand places, all of it honest, all of 
 it without taint; until the State shows that it was not so paid out, 
 
 36 
 
the evidence is zero, and worse than that it is an insult. Apph^ I 
 repeat, these rules to any act of his. 
 
 Now there is a way that bank accounts can be proven. There is 
 a way that they can be introduced, and they can be introduced without 
 proving the actual passage of the money, when you have proven a 
 crime has been committed and a bribe has been passed — when the 
 corpus delicti has been established — in order to sustain it and not to 
 prove it, but to sustain it after proof. You can prove the possession 
 of the particular thing alleged to have been stolen, or the particular 
 bribe passed. Nay more, you can prove the possession of money by a 
 man alleged to have been bribed, or the possession of money by a man 
 alleged to have committee a theft or a robbery without actually identi- 
 fying the money. But before that — before you can do that you must 
 introduce evidence excluding every other reasonable hypotheses as to 
 the source of the money. The law was never better stated than in 
 the instruction of the court in the case of Commonwealth vs. Coyne, 228 
 Mass. 269. The opinion in the case is by his Honor the Chief Justice, 
 who does not say, it is true, that everything in this instruction, is 
 necessar}s but who does approve the instruction and says that the 
 instruction protected properly the defendant’s rights. I have no hesi- 
 tation in saying that nothing less than this instruction would protect 
 the defendant’s rights and that the learned Judge who tried the case 
 at nisi gave the law as it stands as the law is. “It was not equivalent” 
 said His honor the Chief Justice, “to the admission of evidence of 
 another crime. That was not the ground on which it was received. 
 The jury were not permitted to consider it in that connection. But 
 the jur}^ were instructed carefully to disregard this evidence upon the 
 question of breaking and entering and to consider it only if the breaking 
 and entering was found to be proved by independent evidence, . . . ” 
 That is the language of the Chief Justice. “And even then only if 
 it was found that the defendants ‘had no other source of income to 
 account for the possession of the property found in their possession, 
 and if they also found that the money and jewelry were the proceeds, 
 or a part of the proceeds, of the property stolen from the Wallace 
 residence, they might* consider this evidence insofar as this property 
 accoimts for the defendants not having the specific articles stolen 
 in their possession when arrested; that otherwise they were to dis- 
 regard the evidence entirely.’ ” Now that rule protects a man. That 
 rule is, first, that evidence of the possession of money is not evidence 
 of the primary commission of a crime, until the crime has been first 
 estabhshed; and second there must be a finding from the evidence 
 that the defendant did not have any sources of income which would 
 account for the possession of the property. Apply that to this case. 
 
 There is no evidence that Daniel H. Coakley might not have been do- 
 ing business bottomed upon a fortune of one million, or tw'o milHon or ten 
 million dollars. There is evidence that he had two or three bank 
 accoimts ; that he did a very large business from which one w^ould infer 
 the possession of a large fortune. There is no evidence as to Joseph 
 Pelletier’s fortune, or money. The State utterly failed to connect 
 this evidence and make it competent, although they told this court time 
 
 37 
 
and again they would. There is no e\-idence that he is dependent upon 
 his sala iy . He is not. There is no evidence as to how large a salaiy' 
 he draws from other institutions, or what they are. There is no evi- 
 dence as to the amount of money he made from his private practice. 
 There is no evidence as to whether he had a private fortune of his own. 
 There is no evidence that the money he put into his safety deposit box 
 might not have come from any one of ten thousand sources. There is 
 no evidence that the money he put into his bank might not have been 
 trust funds, clients’ funds, his own funds. The State is left suspended 
 in the air. The evidence is unconnected. You have failed to prove 
 }-our case, and without proof the evidence should go out of this case, 
 and never should have been admitted except upon the promise to connect 
 it up, and that promi.se has not been kept. 
 
 RUGG. C. J. : The court will take its usual noon recess. 
 AFTERXOOX SESSIOX 
 
 RUGG, C. J. You may resume your argument, Mr. Reed, it 
 you please. 
 
 MR. REED. May it please the Court, if I am unable to conclude 
 within the allotted time, the Attorney General has said to me, very' 
 generously, that he is quite willing my time should be extended it it is 
 agreeable to the Court, — of course, a similar privilege being granted to 
 the other side if they desire it, and I shall try not to wear\* your Honors 
 a moment longer than seems to me to be absolutely necessaiy. 
 
 I do not iatend, after what I have said, to discuss these bank 
 deposits in detail because, as I have asserted, they prove nothing, 
 in the absence of the limiting evidence whidi the State was in dun* bound 
 to produce; but I cannot refrain from calling attention to one item, as 
 shown upon the face of these accounts. 
 
 It will be remembered that one of the first item_s introduced was, 
 presumptively, in connection with the Beiman, case. It seems that 
 the transaction, on its face as it originally appeared, took place about 
 November 6; and so, with great glee, the State introduced in e^fidence 
 the deposit of Mr. Coakley on that day of $32,593. But subsequent 
 evidence showed that, at that time, the money had not been paid by 
 the Bermans at ah, and that Coakley went to the bank and borrowed 
 that money, and a deposit sHp of $67,000 was introduced by the State 
 and, on examination, it wras found that the deposit shp was made up 
 of two items, one a loan of $32,500, with a note given, and the other 
 a loan of an amount on a different note which made up the sum of 
 $67,000. And it was further shown that Coakley, on that same day, 
 made his check for the $32,593.43, which was the amount of the loan 
 made at the bank, with the accumiulated interest figured up to the time 
 when the Bermans afterwards paid the money. I am in error in my 
 statement that Mr. Coakley on that day made that loan. The loan 
 was made on October 10, at the time the transaction with the Bermans 
 was dosed up. But those are the facts disdosed in the records, with 
 
 3S 
 
the correction I have made. Accordinzh 
 
 
 at if. on XoT 
 
 her 7 , he had tvithdrawn $- 3,000 and gave iz to Pelletier as the mrre 
 insinuation is, he would have c^een caving money out oc cc-cket while 
 he was already borrowing $ 32,000 for the Bermans. 
 
 And 30 I might go through this record. But I come haih to the 
 rule of law that there must be a connection shown, and the mere mnnec- 
 tion cannot be deduced rom the facts of decc*sits ant wtthfrawnls. 
 
 oecause. u: 
 
 Le or law, mmocence to 
 
 nrst place, and, in the secc'nd place, the evidence must he of sm 
 acter as to exclude every other reas.:nahle hypoth; 
 world of btisiness lies there, to account for evemr one of these 
 actions. 
 
 use a document merely as an illustration of what might havr 
 place Simply in my argument let me 
 
 tion with the Buckley case — let me assume that that is th 
 let me assume that it was endorsed by one J. B. Miram 
 assume that J. B. Moran b or row e d the money, and let m 
 
 lot for a m‘Dm 
 
 
 id as e“.ddent£anr. but I refer to 
 
 how easy it is. by pursuing the wild course of imaginatiom to imagine 
 
 case, where the terrdme fact is Pelletier put $-5.CiOO in the 
 
 properly refer to it. It showrs that the money drawn cut by Coakley 
 was drawn to Daniel H. Sugrue. who sat here in this mom whom 
 the State declined to put upon the stand — -cne of the couns*h vcluntarly 
 casting aspersions upon the man's character. W ss that the reason they 
 would not put Mr. Sugme on the stand: Have they been sc* choice in 
 
 has not been so debased thev wouln not nut it here unon the stand 
 
 if it would 
 
 :e camta. anamst r 
 
 
 on the stand. And so they trace the money into the hants of E^arhel 
 H. Sugrue, and there ft rests. But let me new supp*ose. hy wny of 
 illustration only, that Sugrue took the m^oney and paid it out in settle- 
 ment of a case to an attorney of this town and took his receipt, and 
 
 that is argument : I oner it only as argument I 
 
 And what more do vou get. as I nass through ani nnaZv 
 these banks accounts? It is said, why. here is a check which w3s 
 cashed across the bank for several th*?usand dollars and that is evinence 
 of some sinister purpose. I have recently had cocasion :o go to a rmtain 
 bank account, not in this case, and found where checks for four, nve 
 and six thousand dollars had been cashed across a counter — nay. m*?re 
 It is the ordinarr course of checks that they do not go through the bank 
 
 39 
 
upon the day they are drawn; and these accounts which have been 
 introduced here, let me challenge your attention, your Honors, to the 
 fact, do not show the date when a check was made: they show the date 
 a check was paid. And I could show you checks for thousands of 
 dollars which have been carried for months and never cashed, but 
 in the ordinary course examine, if you please, your own accoimts and 
 see how many checks came in from two to ten and twelve days after- 
 wards. And so the evidence that a check was passed through a bank 
 upon a certain day is no evidence at all that the transaction took place 
 upon that day. 
 
 Thus, this evidence that has been produced ceases to be evidence, 
 for it is in no manner connected up as the law requires. I take it out 
 and break the chain of these conspiracies, as I believe they must be 
 broken, by the hammer of the law, and there is nothing in this case 
 on which to rest even the vague suspicion which malice may conjure 
 up or envy may promote. 
 
 Now, if your Honors please, very briefly let me take up these various 
 cases. 
 
 The Berman case. When is the scheme laid ? October, 1916. Seven 
 years have come and gone, and Mr. Berman says his suspicions were 
 not even aroused until he read something in the newspaper, and then, 
 if I recall the testimony rightly, be began discussing the case with some 
 conception of getting money back. 
 
 Now what is the case ? It is that Corcoran, then the District At- 
 torney of an adjoining coimty — ^however much debased he is today, 
 to what vile estate he may have sunk — was then, seven years ago, 
 regarded as an honorable citizen and was the prosecuting attorney 
 of an adjoining county, clothed with all that elevation to a high office 
 can confer. He telephones to Pelletier, a brother district attorney, 
 and says, “Please get the register of this second-class hotel.” Was 
 that unusual? Why, I have been prosecuting attorney, and a mere 
 telegram from a prosecuting officer whom you had never seen, a telegram 
 to Missouri, even to the State “west of the Mississippi,” from Massa- 
 chusetts, asking me to obtain the register of such a hotel, would have 
 received instant attention; and if I had wired back here to any prose- 
 cuting attorney I would have expected the same courtesy. The chiefs 
 of police of all the cities do that kind of service for each other. It is 
 of the very essential of the detection of crime. Are you to draw from 
 it an evil purpose? Not tmless the evil purpose is present. The act 
 itself is as innocent as the course pursued by all the officers of this 
 coimtry, as any act is ever done. It may be arbitrary. If these 
 people had refused to give up their register, the policeman would have 
 had to turn around and left. But people ordinarily do not. I say it 
 is the gommon and the usual thing. The Attorney General of this 
 Commonwealth would wire the Attorney General of New York to- 
 night, to please hold John Smith until tomorrow morning, and he 
 would be held as certain as the message was delivered. Now, that much 
 Pelletier did. What followed? The register was delivered to Pelletier 
 and soon thereafter there appeared in his office, Meyer Berman and 
 Isaac Gordan. It does not make any difference for the purposes of 
 
 40 
 
this case whether they first visited Mr. Coakley or not. Their testi- 
 mony is that they went directly to Coakley, who had been their advisor 
 before. Is Pelletier responsible for that act? What a strange coin- 
 cidence, to be sure, if this were a conspiracy, that these men went 
 immediately to their own attorney, if this was the man who was to 
 consummate the conspiracy against them. Such a conclusion does not 
 jump with common sense. It is a strain upon credulity. 
 
 They came to him — and this is all that happened — ^they asked him 
 why he had sent for the register. He told them that he had sent for 
 it at the request of District Attorney Corcoran of Middlesex County, 
 and that that was all he knew about it. Whether it occurred there or 
 whether they had first been to Coakley, we do not know, for there their 
 own story disagrees with itself, if I recall the evidence aright. One 
 of these men said, “We will have to go and see our lawyer, Coakley, 
 about it.” But Pelletier did not suggest it. Even Meyer Berman 
 does not say that. And it is one of the marvels of this case that he 
 did not say it, for who is there in all the world will think he would not 
 have said it had he thought it would suit the purpose of the hour. 
 That is Pelletier’s sole connection with this case, and not one word more 
 -to it. I am not concerned in such a state of facts as that, for what 
 transpired between Coakley and Corcoran, the State does not make 
 Pelletier privy to it by any act, by any thought, by any single link of 
 evidence. Nay, they have not by so much as the weight of one poor 
 farthing, furnished evidence of connection. But, if we were to take the 
 evidence as it stands here, these three or four or five men met with 
 their lawyer, Coakley. He told them — and there is not a word of coim- 
 tervailing evidence — ^that the charge was that Meyer Berman had 
 introduced in his resort, the wife of a man who had there been de- 
 bauched, that this man claimed heavy damages, and, under the advice 
 of their counsel, they settled. Why did they settle? Men like Berman 
 do not pay out $35,000 unless there is guilt. They do not leave their 
 money behind and run, unless the law is hot in their pursuit. Now, 
 Corcoran then may have been a wolf; Corcoran then may have been 
 a blackmailer, but there is no evidence. And Coakley then may have 
 been as bad as his worst enemy would paint him. I do not say so. 
 I know nothing against this man. He may be the most abused man in 
 Boston for aught I know. But, If these two lawyers and these three 
 or four or five Hebrew^ gentlemen transacted that business there, how 
 is it connected with Pelletier, whose single act is an honest act, an 
 ordinary act ? 
 
 I say there was guilt. They settled a civil claim, and they paid 
 heavily. Now, let us foUow the story on. Some three or four months 
 elapsed. They did not pay the money that day, you will remember. 
 There was no great haste. There was only $2,500 paid that day, and 
 they had some three or four weeks in which to pay the rest. They 
 had all of that time to learn that their own lawyer had tricked them 
 if he did trick them, and then they came in and paid the money. There 
 was no fee exacted. The money was borrowed in the bank by Coakley 
 to make good for them. I think that is in the record. If I have in- 
 advertently said something outside the record, I wiU withdraw it. I 
 
 41 
 
think that is in the record. It is hard for me to keep what I hear in 
 this room and outside of it separated, but I do not mean to trespass 
 on the rules. 
 
 Then a year passes, and Sam Berman says, “Coakley sent for me 
 and said, T want $15,000 more.’” “What for?” “They are after 
 you again.” This is a year after the conversation with Pelletier. 
 “They are after you again.” Now, don’t you know, your Honors, that 
 that was a fee, that Coakley was charging them for the work that he 
 had done for them, that the claim that it was blackmail and that these 
 Jews gave it up without a protest, is a falsehood so monstrous that if 
 it had been uttered by Ananias and Sapphira, it would have fully justi- 
 fied their fate. You do not need evidence to refute a story of that kind. 
 
 I have said these Jews. For myself I condemn no race, and from 
 my tongue has never fallen an aspersion upon a man because of his blood. 
 Since I have had to make this reference, permit me just to say that in 
 every race there is good and bad. The Jewish race has produced some of 
 the greatest characters of the past and some of the greatest of the 
 present. The Jew is as good a man as lives, but a bad Jew is as bad 
 a man as lives, and these two things, because of the very strength of 
 the Jewish character, which, turned to good account marks the high-, 
 way where blazes the pure sim, or, seeing fit to take the other course, 
 brings the very genius of his race to bad accoimt. As to the Bermans 
 you may make a choice. You saw them on the stand. 
 
 I have heard much of Daniel H. Coakley and I have met him. He is 
 a very ordinary looking man. It seems he prospered here at your bar for 
 many years, and no one discovered anything remarkable about him. He 
 is even now a member of your bar, a quiet, modest and beseeming 
 gentleman. But, he must be possessed, if you accept this story, of 
 hypnotic power, the like of which Svengali never had. Svengali could 
 not make poor Trilby sing with half the readiness that by the mere 
 waving of his hand, Coakley made Berman give up $15,000, that 
 gentleman who loved the touch of gold so well he would coin it in a 
 brothel and take it for the hire of a lewd woman. 
 
 And he gave up $15,000. All Coakley said was, “Give me $15,000, 
 they are after you,” and he dove into his pockets and shoveled it out. 
 Is there anybody here believes that? The Attorney General doesn’t 
 believe that. He can’t. He has too much intellect. That is that 
 case, and that is all there is to such a case. 
 
 Now let us take the Emerson Motors case. What was the State’s 
 theory here, as plainly reflected in the questions of the State and in 
 the manner of its marshalling evidence as though it had been painted 
 broad upon the wall or stated in the open court ? It was that PeUetier 
 himself conceived and set in motion an investigation of this concern, 
 that he advised himself with reference to its infirmities and weaknesses, 
 that then he caused its agents to become alarmed, that they were 
 brought here to this town through some sort of connivance by somebody 
 not named, perhaps by Carroll, afterwards named as co-conspirator, 
 that Carroll carried them to Coakley and that Coakley alarmed them 
 to the point where they would disgorge, that they repaired to Pelletier’s 
 office, and that Pelletier then, having no knowledge through the police 
 
 42 
 
of what had been discovered, evinced a complete knowledge of the case, 
 and that therefore the scheme must have been his. And, oh, with what 
 care the State had the witness who was sent to New York, Mr. Waite tes- 
 tify that until the morning of the 5th of October, he had not reported 
 the facts that he had discovered in New York, yet that Pelletier knew 
 these facts, hence some mysterious source and hence, again, the con- 
 clusion that he, Pelletier, had devised this scheme. But as we pro- 
 ceeded on in the case a little way, and after the State had carefully 
 proven by one of its officers that he did not report imtil the morning 
 of the 5th it happened that Chief Inspector McGarr was put upon the 
 stand. I never saw an officer of the police who impressed me more 
 as an upstanding man than Inspector McGarr, — clear headed, careful, 
 straightforward . 
 
 And now what is the story as we receive the facts ? Not the distorted 
 picture reflected from the distorted mirror of an imagination inflamed, 
 but facts? Plain they come forth and clear as the running brook. 
 Inspector McGarr started the investigation himself. He read the 
 advertisement in the newspaper. He brought it to Mr. Pelletier’s 
 office and said, “What do you think of that?” and Pelletier said, “I 
 have just been looking at it as I came up on the boat. What do you 
 think of it?’’ “I think it looks bad. I have a notion to investigate.’’ 
 And Pelletier said, “Go to it.’’ I think those were the words in the 
 evidence. And so Inspector McGarr started it, and Inspector McGarr 
 went to it. 
 
 And then Inspector McGarr put on the case Mr. Farrell. Farrell 
 was the man by whom the State sought to prove that Pelletier had this 
 knowledge he should not have. 
 
 And let me now conclude that phase, so that I may not pass it 
 by in the end. Inspector McGarr not only swore that he started this 
 investigation, but he swore that from day to day he had reported the 
 facts to Pelletier, the facts found here, the facts foimd in New York, 
 so that the mystery of Mr. Pelletier’s knowledge was cleared up by 
 their own witnesses. He got it from McGarr. And all your house 
 of cobwebs blew away by the breath of truth from one of your own 
 witnesses. 
 
 Now, briefly. Carroll went to Matches. Let us get this picture 
 as it is. Here is an institution advertising in a newspaper. Nobody 
 knows that it is not a perfectly straight institution. No District 
 Attorney wants to ruin or destroy a legitimate enterprise. AU under- 
 stand how serious it is to let the breath of suspicion go out against a 
 business house, and so they proceed with some care. But, on the other 
 hand, people of Boston and the vicinity have been, I presume, as they 
 have in other cities, jobbed and jobbed and jobbed again by stock 
 salesmen, and here is a thing that on its face does not look just right. 
 The District Attorney could have sat back, but being a man who wanted 
 to protect his people he said to the police, who started it, “Yes, go 
 ahead. If you need to send a man to New York, here is your warrant 
 to send him on.’’ There were people who knew that the stock sales 
 of this scheme of sales was a bad and rotten thing. My own opinion 
 is the Emerson Motors Company plan of building a cheap car was 
 
 43 
 
entirely a practicable thing. If inexpensive automobiles can be built 
 by Henry Ford they can be built by others. The whole question was, 
 as far as the factory is concerned, whether the scheme was sound, 
 and evidence has been brought forward that the best automobile men 
 in the country were engaged in it; but the stock sales scheme was 
 probably unsound. They were making misrepresentations in their 
 advertisements to seU their stock. And while the stock sales scheme 
 was unsound, it is nevertheless true that many an institution has 
 been floated to success and the stock sold at enormous discounts to 
 begin with. It is not worth while to argue that. The simple thing 
 that Pelletier had before him was this advertisement, to begin with. 
 
 The investigation proceeded, but Matches knew. He knew he 
 had been sending out letters that PeUetier never saw, one of which 
 was introduced here in this court, grossly misrepresenting. He knew 
 that the statements that were being made daily by his men in sell- 
 ing stock were grossly false. But other people did not possess the 
 same knowledge. All that Pelletier knew what what the police found 
 out, but Matches knew. How do I know he knew? First, he knew 
 his own acts, and his men who were with him knew. Behold, Officer 
 Farrell goes to the office and asks to see the books and makes inquiries. 
 They are answered. He goes over to look at the automobile, and in- 
 stantly the four salesmen from the salesroom leave the salesroom, fly 
 to the ball park and call Matches form the box in which he sits in almost 
 as lordly fashion as he sat in this room, beholding the World’s Series, 
 and he comes out. Is that ever done by men who are not alarmed? 
 They knew. Pelletier did not know that. The police did not know 
 that. They telephone to New York. They get in touch with Mr. 
 Wilson. And here at home they rush on a Monday morning succeeding 
 these events of Thursday, or Friday, or Saturday, to see Mr. Carroll. 
 Carroll says, “Why, I think there is no trouble. The fact that the 
 police are up there does not mean anything. You are an honest con- 
 cern. What difference does it make?” Wasn’t that the attitude of an 
 honest lawyer, who believed he was representing an honest thing? 
 Would it not have been the attitude of any of your Honors if you were 
 yourselves practising at the bar? ' I think so. 
 
 But Matches is not satisfied. He is telephoning back and forth 
 to New York, I know not how many times, “I know there is trouble.” 
 “I know there is trouble.” How did they know it? A police officer 
 had been down looking through that plant, and they feared an investi- 
 gation, as all crooks fear investigation. It needs only a shadow to 
 frighten the criminal. And so they hurried Mr. Stephens, then the 
 attorney of one of the great insurance companies of New York, as 
 shown by Matches’s testimony, over here, and Matches takes him and 
 Carroll in a room and tells them there is trouble. “You must find 
 out.” I don’t know whether it was that day or the day before that 
 Mr. Carroll had said — no, it was that day — “This is going to be a serious 
 matter.” He had found out. He had gone and seen Mr. Coakley in 
 a perfectly natural way, and asked Mr. Coakley to find out if there 
 was an investigation, and said, “Coakley can find out, if it is proper 
 for the District Attorney to let him know.” Well, now, undoubtedly 
 
 44 
 
Carroll thought that Coakley was in some way better fitted to get that 
 information than himself. But is Pelletier to be held responsible in 
 this case because that was the estimate Carroll put upon Coakley? 
 He might as well have gone, perhaps, to any one of fifty other law>"ers; 
 he might as well, in fact, have gone himself. But Coakley had, I think, 
 some reputation here of being a lawyer of very great skill. “Yes. 
 There is an investigation going on,” that is all they got. All that 
 Matches needed was to be sure there was an investigation going on, 
 and then he knew the facts that Matches might confront. Then what? 
 Stephens says, when Carroll tells him “if there is to be a real case you 
 will have to get another law^^er, a man who can handle that sort of 
 business.” You saw Francis M. Carroll on the stand. I don’t know 
 him, save as I saw him here. He may be a man of superb ability; I 
 cannot tell. I wouldn’t say from his appearance one would pick him 
 exactly as a champion in some great contest in a criminal court. Un- 
 doubtedly these people knew' that if information was filed it would 
 destroy their business. Undoubtedly Stephens knew it because it was 
 a fact. Undoubtedly Matches knew in the guilty heart of himself that 
 it might mean the penitentiary, as it afterward did mean to him in 
 this very case, only it was tried in New York. But Pelletier didn’t 
 know it. Now what happened? Stephens went over to Coakley’s 
 office with Matches and laid down the arguments in this case. What 
 were they? “Yes. The advertisement does misstate a fact or two 
 here. It says we have a plant, which we are not able to get, but we are 
 going to get a plant. We are going to do everything we said we would 
 do everything we said we were going to do in as good or a better way. 
 We have the money to do it. And we haven’t wasted our money. 
 We have no big salaried officials. We are an honest institution. Here 
 are these great automobile men whose names appear upon the directory. 
 For God’s sake don’t destroy this great enterprise and bring injur}^ 
 upon a lot of innocent people who have bought stock. Can’t we get 
 this thing before the District Attorney?” No trouble about that. 
 “I’U take you over and introduce you to the District Attorney and you 
 may make your own statement and I will back you up. But let’s know 
 what the facts are.” And Coakley pinned them down as a smart 
 lawyer does with every client that comes to him, just as I would do to- 
 morrow. I would insist on knowing what there was in my client’s 
 case. Undoubtedly there was a serious statement. They went over, 
 however, to Pelletier and they fotmd Pelletier in a very inquiring mood. 
 He was taking nobody’s word for it. He had had reports from McGarr. 
 “Where is this factory? You have made that representation.” And 
 Mr. Stephens made the explanation. “How many machines have you 
 made?” I think was asked. And so he went through the four or 
 five points and finally, it being stated to him that they had this money, 
 “I wiU not accept yom- word for it, gentlemen. I want an auditor’s 
 report.” — Then the appeal is made “Do not destroy the business; 
 give us a chance; everything is straight.” And finally he says “I’ll 
 consider it, but if I do consider it you must quit selling stock in Massa- 
 chusetts and you must agree to pay back to my people every dollar 
 they ever paid for this stock if they demand it.” I know of no picture 
 
 45 
 
of an officer in the public service more commendable or brighter than is 
 that picture. Here he sat on guard for his own people. He was unwill- 
 ing to take the responsibility of destroying a great institution, upon the 
 one hand; he was unwilling, on the other, to permit any man to sell 
 stock of that institution here in Boston, lest in the one instance he might 
 destroy valuable property rights, and a great scheme; lest in the other 
 instance his own people might have their pockets picked by some stock- 
 broking-adventurer, and in his uncertainty he said to them that day 
 “I will take it under consideration. I want this report of the expert 
 or auditor. I want to know they have got this money, that, they 
 are not a mere fly-by-night concern.” Now that is the evidence from 
 their side. From the State’s side. And then what happens? Not a 
 word has been said in this office even to Matches, in whose evil heart 
 you could rear weeds of perjury upon the instant, if he could but profit 
 thereby. He says they went away without a word and that caused him 
 therefore to have suspicion. It is true, he says, that Pelletier said to 
 Coakley “Well, Dan, have you got your fees yet?” It might have been 
 a mere jest, if ever said. But if it was said and said in any sinister way, 
 then Matches did not teU the truth when he said he left them without 
 any intimation of wrong. But what about Francis Carroll? Who are 
 you going to believe now, Carroll the lawyer, or Matches? Carroll 
 gives that account. He gives it at the instance of the State. He did 
 not testify to such a phrase. And if the State could have obtained 
 it — could have had that witness testify — not as a co-conspirator, but as 
 an honorable citizen — how greedily it would have been wrested from 
 him. And then these gentlemen came over to settle their own affairs; 
 Coakley demanding what may be regarded by this coiut as an exorbi- 
 tant fee. The District Attorney — the decision of the District At- 
 torney has already been foreshadowed, and that it wiU be favorable, 
 but they haven’t yet produced the evidence which is to come along, of 
 the deposit of the $300,000 in the banks. And Coakley bargains not 
 for a $20,000 fee, but according to his practice and usage a contingent 
 fee of $500 and $20,000 if he succeeds. And if he did succeed how well 
 it would be worth $20,000 for this institution would have been pro- 
 tected from persecution that might have wrecked it — would have 
 wrecked it. It would have been protected by a legitimate argument 
 largely made by Stephens. Matches knew how much he was being 
 protected. Wilson, the head stockbroker, undoubtedly knew how 
 dear it was to him. And so they brought the money over here and 
 Coakley said he wanted it in cash — a very natural thing for him, at 
 least, to do. But when the money came Carroll put it in the bank where 
 the plain record was laid down, and checked it out to Coakley. And 
 now the whole deal is closed. And then the next day Matches puts into 
 this case the only thing that could cast an aspersion upon Pelletier. 
 And what was that? The conversation between himself and CarroU 
 in which he says that Carroll said to him that the money had to be 
 divided with Pelletier, or intimated it. He didn’t say it directly. He 
 drew that inference. And then this wretch states that he continued 
 on friendly terms with Carroll and the evidence is that CarroU con- 
 tinued to represent him as an attorney. Now let us take the measure 
 
 46 
 
of that thing. What in the name of Heaven did Pelletier have to do 
 with it? How could that conversation bind Pelletier? Where is the 
 conspiracy that is shown to do aught that is wrong? Where are the 
 things that transpired up to this moment that any honest man might 
 not have done — would not have done? Where is the evidence that 
 Pelletier knew a cent had been brought over from New York and that 
 Coakley was to receive a fee; that Carroll was to have a part of the 
 fee, or did receive part of the fee? Where is the evidence? There is 
 no such evidence. Then we look at the story of this man Matches 
 testifying here imder oath, testifying before the Bar Association, ad- 
 mittedly hoping it will help him in his criminal case. His criminal case 
 that was no sooner closed than he changed attorneys and got Mr. Cole- 
 man as his representative. The same Coleman who went out to Ohio 
 and got the affidavit of Bond to be used in these proceedings against 
 Pelletier and Coakley. This same Coleman who came over to Boston 
 with Matches when Matches was to testify before the Bar Association. 
 The same Coleman who was in connivance — ^who had met Perrin, and 
 who like Perrin had talked the matter of the written statement before 
 it was delivered to the Bar Association; this statement that was refused 
 three or four times. What were these men doing — ^this man Coleman 
 whom Bond says he learned represented Cabot? What wbre they 
 to do in gathering up this evidence, getting these affidavits, but framing 
 a story to get Mr. Pelletier for the purpose of aiding in some mysterious 
 way the man Matches then under sentence and now under final con- 
 viction? The same Matches who, for some mysterious reason and by 
 some mysterious influence, is kept out of the penitentiary imtilhecan 
 testify here, although the writ of certiorari, the last step that could 
 be taken in legal proceeding, was overruled on the 21st day qf October 
 last, and evidence is delivered by that man of an alleged conversation 
 he had with Mr. Carroll, out of the presence of Mr. Pelletier and no 
 human being claiming it was ever communicated to Pelletier. He 
 hears of it first in these proceedings -when the scream of perjury and 
 malice, poirring from the lips of these creatures, gushes as a flood about 
 him. 
 
 Now, first, as to its competency, in the absence of any proof to 
 connect. And, second, wiU this Court beheve Matches as against the 
 testimony of Mr. Carroll? They were both witnesses for the State. 
 WiU the Court choose the evil witness, the convicted witness, the 
 criminal witness, produced as against the reputable law^^er produced on 
 the same side — ^not by our side but by their side. Which is to be 
 chosen? Aye, the testimony of a man who himself admits or charges 
 himself with being a criminal, who comes in then to take away the char- 
 acter of an honest man — on such testimony are human reputations to 
 be wrecked? Why, sirs, if I had a common, yeUow dog, I would not 
 convict him of sheepkiUing upon the testimony of a mangy cur with 
 his mouth fuU of wool. I would not convict an honorable citizen upon 
 the testimony of an admittedly dishonorable man. If it is ever done, 
 then the heavens of justice may coUapse, and these tribunals which are 
 the paUadium of our liberty become the instruments of VTong. 
 
 So much for the Emerson case. 
 
 47 
 
Now, I shall not spend so much time on other cases. My col- 
 league warns me that I am taking too much time. 
 
 Let us take the Warren C. Daniel-Metropolitan Motors case and 
 in the cold Hght of reason, as far as possible analyse it. There was an 
 investigation — and this comes right after the Emerson Motors, which 
 had excited suspicion — and another concern is here selling stock, and 
 this investigation is started. Assistant District Attorney Webber 
 comes in to Pelletier one day and says that a lawyer named Fox had 
 said to him that Coakley had said to a lawyer from New York repre- 
 senting the Metropolitan Motors that he could fix the District Attorney 
 for $10,000, or words to that effect. 
 
 What happened? Now, let us get this picture. Here sits a prose- 
 cuting attorney, and one of his deputies comes and tells him of the 
 astounding tale. Thereupon the District Attorney immediately 
 telephones to Fox to come to his office and bring this lawyer, Bernstein, 
 and Mr. Bond. They came to the office and started to tell their story. 
 The District Attorney said that he thought the lawyers, Coakley and 
 Lavehe, ought to be present as they were under accusation, and he 
 called them to his office to answer the charge. LaveUe had been first 
 employed by this Metropolitan Motors Company, you will remember; 
 he had been their attorney, and, after he had concluded that there 
 was something serious the matter, he had consulted Coakley. I hope 
 that is not a criminal act. Many times lawyers are consulted by other 
 lawyers. I regarded it with a great deal of pride when the day came in 
 my life when I found younger members of the Bar coming around and 
 asking me to help them in cases. If that is a criminal offence, then 
 about half the lawyers in my city are guilty, and I am particeps criminis, 
 because I. think about half of the number have come to me and I have 
 regarded it as the greatest compliment that could ever be paid me. 
 Perhaps I have been complimenting myself too much, and I beg to say 
 that it is through inadvertence. 
 
 So, Lavelle came to Coakley for some help — and, by the way, the 
 evidence is, I think, in accordance with the fact, that LaveUe at that time 
 was at outs with his former chief, the District Attorney, they were not 
 freinds; but now the District Attorney, indignant at this report, sum- 
 mons these people in. Before Coakley arrived, Webber, the assistant, 
 and Fox were brought into court — 
 
 MR. BOYLE. Not into court. 
 
 MR. REED. Yes — into PeUetier’s court, this court which he 
 had set up to try these gentlemen and to find the facts. It is tm- 
 doubtedly true, as shown by the Bar Association evidence which was 
 introduced to contradict Bernstein, that Bernstein had, before the 
 Bar Association, testified to the fact that these two men. Fox and Webber, 
 were having a hot dispute, they were up to the point now where the 
 thing was to be sifted out. Had Mr. Fox made the charge to Mr. 
 Webber which Mr. Webber reported to Mr. PeUetier? Fox imme- 
 diately began to recede from it. Webber insisted upon it. And in 
 that state of affairs, Coakley having come in, what transpired? 
 
 48 
 
Coakley said — and the Bar Association evidence shows it now — 
 “I have talked to three men in this case. I don’t care anything about 
 the disputes between these gentlemen. I never talked to them.” 
 Coakley knows — ^he is there on trial — that he has got to purge himself 
 of that charge or that he will have to settle with Mr. Pelletier in some 
 way. I know how he would have to settle out in my country. So 
 Coakley says, and wisely says, “I had no talk with these two gentle- 
 men. They are talking at second hand. I have talked with three 
 men. I have talked with Mr. Bond, I have talked with Mr. Bern- 
 stein, and I have talked with Lavelle. Let them tell their story.” 
 And, as they told their stories, Coakley said, “Yes, I said that” — ^for 
 there was nothing in the story for him to deny, and it did not bear out 
 this foul aspersion which had been cast upon Pelletier. And so they 
 went through, each repeating his story, and at the end Coakley said, 
 “Now, everything, even that you have said, Bernstein, is true, except 
 I did not teU you I was the ‘Charhe’ Murphy of New York.” 
 
 The resiilt of that investigation was that Fox’s charge was not 
 sustained, and there was no evidence he had made it except his state- 
 ment to Webber, and it did not involve Mr. Coakley b'ecause Coakley had 
 not talked to Fox. 
 
 Then the District Attorney, having threshed this out, said, “There 
 appears to be nothing in this case or back of this except some jealousy 
 between lawyers.” And then, to show how that Bernstein had re- 
 tracted every charge, or had, in other words, denied each charge which 
 he had made, he turned to Pelletier and said, “I would like to have a 
 hearing.” If he had declared that he had said the thing Fox had 
 charged, he could not have had a hearing. He could not have had 
 the impudence, with all the impudence of his bold face — which, is after 
 all, the thing God chisels character upon — he would not have dared 
 to make that request. And Pelletier walks from the office and says, 
 “There will be no hearing in this case.” 
 
 How like an indignant man? I do not want to use your Honors 
 as illustration, but suppose some other judge, and suppose such a 
 thing as this had transpired, and then one of the parties had said, 
 “Well, I would like to be heard, it being a matter where you are not 
 obliged to give a hearing”: — I can imagine that judge walking indig- 
 nantly away and saying, “There will be no further hearings in this 
 case, on this matter.” ^How natural! 
 
 That is the Daniels case. That is the wicked thing that was 
 done there. Distorted — twisted — why, the most innocent act in the 
 world can be distorted and twisted into anything. 
 
 Now we come to the Peters case. The charge was assault with 
 intent to commit rape. What are the facts? Peters lived in con- 
 cubinage with his mistress — ^had done so for seventeen years. He would 
 not admit that he had introduced her as his wife, but he took her up 
 to Mr. and Mrs. Robbins’ house, and they played cards, and then he came 
 up the next morning. No matter what his excuse is — ^his admissions 
 are here revealed so that this Court and every sensible man knows 
 his purpose. I shall not discuss this case in detail, there are too many 
 ladies here — but he grabbed her, and he pushed her, and he ran around 
 
 49 
 
one room, and finally admitted he ran her into another room; and 
 now, that evening when he came back, the woman’s outraged husband 
 said, “I ought to knock your block off, or your head off,” and the woman 
 in the house said, it being in another apartment, “Don’t have this dis- 
 turbance in my room.” Then Mr. Peters stands up and says, “Why, 
 he would not have touched me. I am too” — ^he meant to say — “too 
 formidable a creature for even an outraged husband to strike.” 
 
 It seems according to the code prevailing here they do not resort to 
 more than hands or feet. I do not know. I am not criticizing the 
 code. But, there are places where size does not coimt in affairs of 
 this kind, but weapons settle questions of that sort. 
 
 Robbins went to the courts. He had this man arrested. What the 
 testimony was before the Grand Jury I believe is not here, but there was 
 enough testimony before the Grand Jury to get an indictment, and in- 
 dictment was returned, and that is the end of the matter. I affirm it to 
 be the law that an indictment is conclusive evidence in any court of 
 law that there was sufficient reason for the indictment, when the in- 
 dictment is a collateral matter brought into the case. There was 
 evidence. On the other hand, if Peters told the truth, then there was 
 only a common assault. Now, what happens? This man Peters refers 
 this to five lawyers, and they all throw up their hands, and finally, after 
 having Mr. Lavelle and also calling in the President of the Bar Associa- 
 tion at this time, — Mr. Hurlburt, they agree to do what? They settle 
 the civil injuries with the understanding that the case will be dropped. 
 If that was wrong and wicked, then all were parties to the wickedness. 
 It is the ordinary way of disposing of a certain class of injuries. I 
 pass from that. 
 
 I intend to hurriedly run through the Buckley case. Here is 
 an interesting story. All of it comes from the lips of one man, and he 
 returns from Chicago to teU his tale. Upon what pressure, deponent 
 sayeth not, because he has no information sufficient to affirm a belief. 
 But he came back. What was developed ? Little by little it came out 
 on cross-examination that Ackerman & Brummel were leather mer- 
 chants, that Buckley and four other people at least, worked at this 
 place, that Ackerman & Brummel had been engaged in a fraudulent 
 scheme to impose inferior leather upon their customers, that they had 
 carried this man along to a state of perfection where they were em- 
 ploying or feeing the foremen in the factories of their customers, so 
 that the foremen would pass the second-class leather as first-class 
 leather, that three of the employees had discovered that fact and had 
 purloined from the papers of the concern the checks and documents to 
 prove that Ackerman & Brummel had been engaged in these frauds. 
 Of course the possession of those instruments enabled them to put 
 a tremendous pressure upon Ackerman & Brummel, in short to black- 
 mail Ackerman & Brummel, and Ackerman & Brummel gave up, 
 S25,000 to these parties to buy their silence, and the negotiation for 
 that settlement was carried on by Mr. Buckley. One of these black- 
 mailers had undertaken to camouflage his blackmail imder a pre- 
 tended claim for a violation of a salary contract. Some time went by 
 and Mr. Buckley, beyond any question, concluded that as the other 
 
 50 
 
scheme had been so successful, he would practice it himself. Accord- 
 ingly he put up a pretended claim of $55,000, which I believe, although 
 I am not sure, was the exact amount of the aggregate blackmail levied 
 in the other case, including the damages that had been paid by Acker- 
 man & Brummel to one of their wronged customers. Buckley says 
 he had a contract in writing which had not yet expired and woiild not 
 expire for a year. He says he was performing his duty and was going 
 on with his work. There was, therefore, no reason for a firm like 
 Ackerman & Brummel to offer him anything extra. And then he 
 says that they had agreed orally to pay him 10 per cent in addition on 
 the sales, and it figured just about the amount of the aggregate black- 
 mail levied before, including the settlement of damages. He is de- 
 tected down at the hotel in conversation with one of these former 
 clerks and blackmailers, and the conversation is of such a character — 
 and we get it all from Mr. Buckley’s lips — that, taken, as he says, 
 over the dictaphone, it contained some things that he did not agree 
 with, and when Mr. Pelletier read it to him the charge was brought 
 home. Here is another man trying to hold this firm up. He was 
 represented. He was called there, talked to, as thousands of others 
 were, and then, what happened? Almost the next day he got together 
 with Ackerman & Brummel, the claim was waived and the whole thing 
 settled up. 
 
 By whom was he represented? He was represented by no less 
 a person than Judge Logan, who, I understand is a most excellent 
 lawyer and whose record upon the bloody fields of France shows that 
 he would never lie down before a blackmailing scheme any more than 
 he would turn his back upon a rain of German bullets. What was 
 done here was to halt a blackmailing scheme, for, of course, Buckley, who 
 knew of these papers and transactions, could have gone out and done 
 infinite injiuy, and in the settlement, as Buckley declares, the papers 
 were surrendered and the evidence of the wrongful acts of Ackerman 
 & Brummel were taken up. 
 
 So that, we are being tried here upon the testimony of an attempted 
 blackmailer, for the' awful crime of halting him and his blackmailing 
 expedition. This sort of man is put on the stand. I ask the court 
 humbly, to read and analyze that stor}^ There was only one witness, 
 their witness. 
 
 Now, as to the Cote case, here is a tale that might evoke the laughter 
 of the gods. I am not going to argue it at length. Your Honors will 
 remember. Here is the man with the wife and children, and a small 
 fortime, the Cote girl, the abandonment of wife and children, the 
 turning over of large sums of money to the girl, the ring of the mother. 
 Oh, God, how could a man give his mother’s ring under such circum- 
 stances? Then you have the letter written by the girl,- dictated by 
 her, written by her, pretending to turn over an automobile. And yet, 
 it was not a bill of sale or a will. Then the storm between these two 
 people over the fact that the erring husband, the man who had erred 
 against wife, was now erring against the mistress, and another woman 
 had come into the case. And then they rage. I think this woman 
 says — she might have said most anything — there was a separation, and 
 
 51 
 
then — this must have been true, — she must have made some dire 
 threats against Lawrence, or else, in his impecunious condition, he 
 would not have hurried off to employ’ a lawyer before she had ever said 
 anything at all about the automobile. Lawrence had appealed to his 
 brother who had sent him $1,000 to hire a lawryer. Why? Do I need 
 to tell this court or suggest to this court that Lawrence was alarmed 
 and frightened most seriously, that in aU human probability — just 
 what Coakley said wotdd transpire — she had threatened the Mann 
 Act, that she had threatened aU sorts of dire consequences, that she 
 had threatened expostue and ruin, and aU of that. And so, the $1,000 
 was paid. And then came the consultations with McCallum, and 
 then came this suit. But, notice, the suit was for an automobile. 
 The title was not given on this piece of paper, but if it had been, why 
 did they send a copy of the notice to Lawrence? It was sent to Law- 
 rence because they wanted Lawrence to know that the processes of 
 the law were going to work out, that in the public forum they were 
 going to drag forth the ugly skeleton of his life, that they were going 
 to expose him, and if what Coakley told the District Attorney was 
 true, it was but the first step in carrying out the threats to ruin and 
 destroy this man, and hence the notice. More than that, when that 
 notice was sent, this girl was already trying to get back her lover. 
 She had been trying to telephone him. And the notice comes. Two 
 conflicting tides of emotion meet there, of course, — the desire to get him 
 back if possible, the desire to get revenge, if he cannot be gotten back, 
 and a combination of the two where they meet, the desire to put the 
 pressure on and force him back. 
 
 Just the natural thing in life. And now there was an indictment, 
 and as a result of that indictment this blackmailing scheme was stopped. 
 That’s all. 
 
 MR. BOYLE. There was no indictment. 
 
 MR. REED. No indictment. Well, there was a threatened 
 indictment, the mere statement, calling upon the District Attorney’s 
 office and asking “What is to be done?” and McCallum was called 
 in there, undoubtedly with a kindly notion that McCallum was making 
 a mistake and that he needed some suggestions of guidance to let him 
 know where he was going. And from what I saw of Mr. McCallum 
 on the witness stand he did need guidance about as bad as any man I 
 ever beheld in the court room. Now, that is the case, if I talked upon 
 it for a week. It was a successful arrestment and stoppage of black- 
 mail. And years go by. Lawrence has been finally alienated from 
 his wife, and then this girl comes here to tell her story, with the husband 
 sitting beside her, and a doctor here to feel her pulse, and an attorney, 
 I think, sitting in the back benches to represent her, and all for what 
 purpose? Because she was not permitted to collect the harlot’s tribute, 
 — the last stick the man had, the last vestige of property he possessed. 
 
 The Emery case. What is the State’s theory. The State’s theory 
 is that Coakley, Pelletier, Corcoran entered into a conspiracy to bring 
 baseless criminal charges against Emery and wife and civil actions 
 against Emery and Mrs. Chase, and thereby to extort money, that 
 
 52 
 
in this conspiracy Daniel J. Gallagher got himself employed by Emery 
 and Mrs. Chase for the purpose of aiding in the blackmail scheme by 
 advising them to settle on Coakley’s terms, that Thomas L. Walsh was 
 also employed and gave the same advice as Gallagher and acted in 
 concert with him, and regardless of any failure of the State to make 
 a specific charge must have been as guilty as Gallagher. Now, what 
 are the facts? 
 
 Papineau, whom you beheld upon the stand, — there are but few of 
 his type, but you may have seen some specimens before, somewhat sim- 
 ilar, — came to Coakley and told him that his wife had been debauched 
 and stolen from him by Emery, that they had been living in adultery 
 in Middlesex County, that he had brought civil actions for damages 
 against Emery and Mrs. Chase, that these actions were still pending, 
 that he had been badly used by his lawyers, and he wanted Coakley to 
 punish these people criminally and recover damages from them civilly. 
 Coakley went with Papineau to Corcoran, then the District Attorney 
 of Middlesex County and a man of good record and presumably of 
 good character. The facts were laid before him and were presented to 
 the Grand Jury, and an indictment followed. Was that the proper 
 place to bring this indictment ? Did I not succeed in bringing from the 
 lips of Mr. Emery himself admissions from which any jiuy in the 
 land would have been warranted in finding a verdict that the charge 
 ^ be made was properly laid in Middlesex County ? Do you remember 
 how like a fox he turned and turned again upon his track ? Whatever 
 way he turned or ran he had to nm through Middlesex County. There 
 his wife’s babe was bom, in his own father’s house, and there he had 
 met her numerous times, and there they had visited. The question of 
 the treatment of Mrs. Chase or of Emery or his wife is utterly imma- 
 terial so far as Pelletier is concerned. The indictment of the Grand 
 Jury in Middlesex County conclusively establishes the fact that there 
 was sufficient evidence produced to warrant the indictment. 
 
 Now, Emery employed detectives. And here is a somewhat 
 comp]icated tale, but I think I can make it very simple. Emery 
 employed detectives to watch Papineau and get him into trouble 
 with women. This cannot be doubted, in view of the detective’s report, 
 in view of the admissions of Mr. Emery, in view of the statement of 
 Mr. Papineau. Their idea was that Papineau was proceeding against 
 them criminally, and that if they could get Papineau in the clutches 
 of the criminal law then they could make him let go in their case, 
 and so they employed these detectives. The purpose of the detectives 
 is too plain for debate or argument. It is clearly shown that they 
 were trying to get him mixed up with women, and to find some criminal 
 charge against him, and this conspiracy to get him mixed up with women 
 was concocted in this county. How was it discovered? Of course 
 we are dealing with detectives. They are curious animals. I say it 
 without hesitation, a decent man is never a detective. Before you 
 can be a detective you have got to get yourself in the frame of mind 
 where you wiU peep through keyholes, gain the confidences of men 
 and then betray them, lift up the curtains of windows and put your 
 sneaking eye to the crack, and whenever a man does that he has laid 
 
 53 
 
honor aside before he does it, and when a man lays his sense of honor 
 aside then there is no limit to what he will do except fear of the law. 
 Now, they concocted that scheme over here of the detective talking 
 to Papineau. The story would seem almost unbelievable, but their 
 own witness tells it, and surely they will not repudiate aught that 
 Papineau said: that the detective asked him who represented him. He 
 learned that he had a lawyer in a casual conversation. He said Coakley. 
 The detective said at the time he did not know him, but the next day 
 said he did know him, that Coakley had once done him a great favor, — 
 I am not sure but he said he saved his life. 
 
 MR. BOYLE. Saved him from prison. 
 
 MR. REED. Saved him from prison. He said, ‘T am going to 
 tell you the truth. I am hired to watch you.” ' He told Papineau. 
 Papineau then goes to Coakley and tells him of this conspiracy to have 
 him commit a crime, to catch him in an act, to induce him to do the act. 
 It was a crime. So stands the evidence, and on that evidence an indict- 
 ment was found against this detective and against Emery and against 
 Robb. It was properly found. And why should not the District 
 Attorney in view of that evidence do exactly what he did when he 
 called this detective in, a man licensed under the laws of Massachusetts 
 to hold himself out to the public as a detective, an officer of the law, 
 and say to him, “I want to know about this thing,” and this detective 
 says, “Although an officer of the law I will tell you nothing.” And so 
 he sent it to the Grand Jury, and they were indicted. They ought to 
 have been indicted. They ought to have been indicted here. 
 
 The question comes then, “Why were they not prosecuted?” 
 Well, we put in no evidence, and so I am left in this case, too trifling a 
 thing to in itself have caused us to go through the long labor of a trial 
 unnecessary, without any other explanation except what we get natur- 
 ally from the evidence. Why were they not prosecuted? WeU, you 
 heard Papineau’s story. You find some other evidence in this case, 
 and you discover from that evidence that Papineau had not told Coakley 
 the truth about scarcely anything when he came there on the 6th of 
 October. He told Coakley that he had his civil cases pending. They 
 had been settled only a few months before for the pittance of $1,000. 
 
 He had told Coakley that he had been greatly wronged and outraged, 
 and yet it transpired that this man had yielded the custody of his own 
 child, and volimtarily agreed to a divorce to be granted to this woman, 
 consented to it, instead of as he had told Coakley, the divorce being 
 granted without proper notice to him. It transpired that while he 
 yielded the custody of his own child, the child of his own loins, he brought 
 a suit for the custody of the child of his wife’s paramour and his wife. 
 And so the cases drifted, that is all, until, grown old and stale, whether 
 because of the absence of witnesses, whether because of the discovered 
 unreliability of Mr. Papineau, for what reason, the long list of which has 
 been given in these cases I have read, the District Attorney dismissed 
 the case. 
 
 Now, that is the story, except this: that Emery, their witness, drags 
 in Daniel J. Gallagher, drags in Walsh, tells a story that needs no 
 
 54 
 
refutation in this court, I am very sure, for against the word of such 
 a man as Emery shows himself to be in this case I would put the charac- 
 ter of any honorable man certain that it would stand there like a granite 
 shaft though all the foul birds of the air had desecrated it. 
 
 The Corcoran case. I think I shall spend but a moment on that 
 case. What is there to it ? In that case it was claimed that a man, the 
 general agent of a wood company, had defrauded the company. 
 
 But there was a civil side to the case and there was an answer to 
 these charges, ih part at least. Now let us take the steps. It is brought 
 to Mr. Pelletier by a reputable lawyer. He tells the reputable lawyer 
 after he hears it, “Why, this is a civil controversy more than criminal; 
 it does not belong here, and if I bring it your institution will try to 
 collect that money and that will be the end of my case. We don’t 
 put that sort of a case in here.” The lawyer protests. He finally says 
 to him, “WeU, now that is my opinion. But go and see Mr. Lavelle, 
 my Deputy, an experienced man; if you can convince Lavelle that 
 there is a case here well and good, you can take it to the grand jury.” 
 He does take the case to Lavelle, a man of many years’ experience, who 
 knows how these cases come and go and how often the processes of 
 the criminal law are abused,- especially where they concern foreign 
 credits, and LaveUe gives the same answer. They go down to the 
 lower court then and they get a complaint there. Then the lawyer on 
 each side started to do exactly what' Pelletier anticipated, dickering 
 for the money. And they continue that course nine or ten times. 
 It was read in the record here, I think, that Pelletier had wickedly 
 caused the continuances, but behold it appeared that Pelletier did not 
 even go into that court, and that the continuances were arranged 
 by the lawyers that were interested in the financial business. Finally, 
 having used these criminal processes to the extent they had, they 
 undertook to go a step further and demand that this man’s sister 
 should give up her fortune. And then one of Pelletier’s deputies said, 
 “Oh, no. You cannot do that.” Then the man was released on bond 
 by agreement of the attorneys on both sides — released on nominal 
 bail — in order that he might get out and help salvage this property 
 and help to settle up these matters. Pelletier wrote it on a slip of 
 paper and put it in the papers and then at last after this man had been 
 out and been trying to help salvage the matter, and civil suits having 
 been brought, the whole matter being in controversy in the civil courts, 
 he dismissed the case as he ought to have dismissed the case. That 
 is that case. 
 
 Now I have one more case — the Perry case. Perry — you will 
 remember the little lawyer who came on the stand — ^Am I inconvenienc- 
 ing your Honors? I have carried you by the hour — 
 
 RUGG, C. J. We haven’t asked you to pause, Mr. Reed. 
 
 MR. REED. I know I am wearying myself and I have no doubt 
 I may be wearying the court, bu^; I will be through now very briefly. 
 
 RUGG, C. J. I hope we have manifested no impatience. We cer- 
 tainly have felt none. 
 
 55 
 
MR. REED. I know what a burden it is to listen to any man, 
 especially myself, make a speech for two hours. 
 
 Now let’s take this case. The State’s theory is that Perry, Barry, 
 Pembroke, Seratt, Bouve, Collamore and Rice were all engaged in a 
 conspiracy to steal automobiles. That their enterprise extended 
 over three or four counties, complaints existing against them in Middle- 
 sex County, Tufts being the then District Attorney; that Corcoran 
 collected a $5,000. fee, and afterwards he learned that there were com- 
 plaints in Essex County, and likely to be complaints in Suffolk County, 
 and other counties and he demanded $10,000 more; that he told these 
 parties he could prevent indictments in any of these counties. I 
 haven’t any doubt he told them so. I haven’t any doubt from what 
 has developed that he- would have- unhesitatingly told any client he 
 could have controlled this court; that Corcoran told him he could pre- 
 vent indictments in Suffolk and had arranged for a hearing before the 
 cases would be presented in Suffolk; that the fee was deposited in the 
 bank; that Charles H. Innes was a party to the scheme; that Wells and 
 Tufts were both implicated; and that Corcoran pretended to telephone 
 to Pelletier, but the conversation was not heard. Now there is this 
 long story, all told in great detail. I wouldn’t, your Honors, believe 
 one word of it coming from the lips that it did, after the charge had 
 been made against Mr. Wells and Mr. Innis, after they had been drawn 
 in. Whenever I find a man himself fleeing from the law begin to cast 
 aspersions not on one, but two or three, that story ceases to have 
 weight with me. Now what were the facts ? Where does Pelletier come 
 in? The case was in these other two counties. It seems indictments 
 were returned, all of them still pending — at least one of them still 
 pending where Mr. Perry should have been to plead the day he stood 
 here testifying. There was an end to this case here, however, a Suffolk 
 County end. The case was presented by the police to the Municipal 
 Court. Perry and Barry were bound over. The case went to the 
 Grand Jury in the usual course along with the regular grist and indict- 
 ments were returned. The evidence was fully heard. Every fact in 
 the possession of the District ' Attorney was submitted to the Grand 
 Jury, and the Grand Jury notes have been introduced in evidence. 
 
 MR. BOYLE: You are in error. Senator, about indictments 
 being returned. That was the case where Perry went before the Grand 
 Jury. 
 
 MR. REED: Indictments were voted and not returned. The 
 evidence was fully heard, and as I understand the Grand Jury notes 
 are in evidence here. Every fact in the possession of the District 
 Attorney’s office was submitted in conversation with the officer. It 
 had undoubtedly been said by the officer that charges were being made 
 in Middlesex County and Essex County and that the cases were under 
 investigation there, if not under indictment. Pelletier had said “Let 
 Middlesex County wash its own dirty linen.’’ Let me say to your 
 Honors I understand it to be the practice where a crime is laid in three 
 or four cormties that the county first taking jurisdiction, the other 
 counties yield jurisdiction: that if these facts be known, unless there 
 
 56 
 
be some peculiar circumstances that would be the practice. There is 
 no evidence as to just what follows. When he got his information 
 through the police or through the deputies is undoubtedly reflected 
 through the evidence — that is, Perry got it a day or two after the 
 indictments had been voted, while it appeared that he, Pelletier, knew 
 nothing. Perry and Barry appeared and requested to be heard before 
 the grand jury. Now here was Perry a lawyer who, up to this time, 
 had not been criminally involved. Barry, I think the evidence shows, 
 keeping one of the largest automobile garages in this city. They asked 
 to be heard. Grand Juror Cutler testifies that Pelletier went before 
 the grand jury and said that Perry and Barry had called at his office 
 and made a request that they be allowed to go before the grand jury. 
 He said it was unusual, but that the grand jury had a right to grant the 
 request if they wanted to do so. Grand Juror Russell tells substan- 
 tially the same story. These men made their statement and there is 
 not the slightest evidence that there was any interfering with or tam- 
 pering with the grand jury. The grand jury in the exercise of its dis- 
 cretion, with all the evidence before it in the possession of the District 
 Attorney or his deputies, voted no bills; and undoubtedly the grand 
 jury, in my opinion, became convinced that there was a doubt about 
 the case; were impressed by the fact that a lawyer, hitherto of unsullied 
 reputation, and a prominent business man were wrongfully accused. 
 Undoubtedly they were impressed with the fact that the evidence — 
 the chief evidence in the case, as I think the grand jury notes will 
 shoWj was that of a confessed thief who was turning State’s evidence. 
 Undoubtedly the experienced grand jury under these conditions, con- 
 cluded to let these cases be tried elsewhere, and at least not to indict 
 these two men. Now what happened? They then voted “no bill.” 
 How is Pelletier connected? Not a word of testimony to show that 
 Pelletier knew anything about Corcoran’s fees, or Corcoran’s schemes, 
 or Corcoran’s plans. No evidence that he did an overt act in this case, 
 except to make the statement of fact to the grand jury that these men 
 wanted a hearing, a thing which was usual and proper. Conspiracy 
 cannot be established — Pelletier cannot be made a party to Corcoran’s 
 scheme by the mere fact that Corcoran told his clients he could get 
 them a hearing, a thing which is ordinarily granted to every decent 
 lawyer. And whatever Corcoran may be today, at that time he was 
 a lawyer in good standing 
 
 Now I have gone through I fear, to the great weariness of the 
 court, this list of cases which, together with the cases discussed by my 
 colleague. Attorney General Boyle, complete the entire catalogue. I 
 have just a few words, if your Honors please, to say in conclusion. 
 
 What is back of this case? A search has been going for three 
 long years, according to the evidence. A dictaphone put in his office. 
 Papers purloined from Mr. Coakley’s office and the man who was en- 
 gaged in the prosecution of these investigations convicted of receiving 
 them criminally. The underground proceeds, nevertheless. Matches 
 being convicted in New York, we find an attorney connected with Mr. 
 Cabot going over to get Bond and to bring him here as a witness — no, 
 let me correct that — to get Bond’s affidavit; the same man getting the 
 
 57 
 
proceedings R attorney bnngmg Matches here; these 
 
 ^1^0® 1 <^rned to the Bar Association, for three years books 
 ransacked and papers overhauled and bank accounted inspected and 
 out of 80,000 cases at last these twenty are brought to trilh ’ 
 
 of conspiracy shgM under Se cirStlnS'lt is betto t^anTny 
 a remark whth^?M^r^°“®”‘ ^ “ade 
 
 thecOv^^t,’^ ^ propaganda going throughout 
 
 wron?^ \f 1'®**.*^® “an who tells you that he is 
 
 a thin? ?i WW T ^^® and tumble of the hustings, 
 
 ahM^nl * la^said I have said it myself, and I think I am a law- 
 
 abiding citizen. I said it to tickle the crowd. And these reporters 
 
 h^ed^^P 'r” °“®i representing the only paper that pub- 
 
 a^ft Pelletier-even he had to 
 
 ^ f provoked laughter, and the last witness completely 
 showed how farcical it was. pf course, if men hate another man they 
 can spze on things of that kind, and trifles light as air become’ huge 
 mountains bellowing with Are and smoke. But, to the normal mind 
 
 tr^higTSlirtoT" i^^° thought that PeUetier was 
 
 trying really to have people go out on the street and beat other people 
 
 Ts to°S’?ip^W%^“"^ 1 ° that race. To treat it sertously 
 
 IS to make a jest of him who so treats it. 
 
 But what is back of this case? I do not know. Out of his twelve 
 
 years work there is no charge for the last three except these charges 
 
 fte^is no XS concerned, and out of the first six yeL 
 
 sprinI^of’hk®pff^!f- ^f®w" ’^®‘‘® ^® find the main- 
 
 the Kd?Ms of rA?*”K' because during the war he headed 
 
 thp t- ^ Columbus and was the executive officer charged with 
 the collection and expenditure of forty millions of dollars? Was it 
 because that money went to France’s stricken fields? Was it because 
 Islt^lfepau’^ Church coifierred upon him a badge of distinction? 
 fitrl wl^o ®'’®” tfi“ngh that society to which he belongs, sol- 
 diers who were coughing up their lungs, soldiers who are groping their 
 
 TnH blindness, soldiers who are halting^ crippled 
 
 Honi^of^^ fi ^'"® fiy numerous organiza- 
 
 tions of which he IS the head? Does this diabolic prosecution spring 
 
 hi^rew PT ri!- “®Pne« Cabot and 
 
 thp p 3^ that makes them gather witnesses from the four quarters of 
 
 thft protection to the cruninal and near criminal? Is 
 
 that the sinister shadow which rises back of the scene ? I do not know. 
 
 pin? I boldly say, that I have never seen in all my life such dig- 
 
 ging in the catacombs of the past, such raking of the dust of time, such 
 
 58 
 
malicious ingenuity, such fixed determination and, as I have witnessed 
 the scene, I have thought of a story I once read of a gallant steed, 
 high-headed, flashing-eyed, proud of soul, and a lizard fastened his 
 crooked teeth into his flank and there hung on until, at last, the glorious 
 steed, whose feet had spumed the desert sands, whose nostrils had 
 drunk in the breath of morning, was dragged down to death. 
 
 I thank the Court. 
 
 RUGG, C. J. Mr. Attorney General, it is so near the end of 
 the day we offer you the choice and let you determine whether you 
 begin your argument tonight or wait until half past nine tomorrow 
 morning. 
 
 MR. ALLEN. I think, may it please the Court, that, in view 
 of the nearness of the closing hour, I will wait until tomorrow morning. 
 
 (Adjourned 9.30 A.M., Tuesday, January 24, 1922.) 
 
 59