The Monroe Bulletin - The Grand Jury Signally Fails Date: Mar. 2004 Submitted by: Lora Peppers ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** The Monroe Bulletin Thursday, October 24, 1901 Page 2, Column 1 THE GRAND JURY SIGNALLY FAILS The Bulletin is extremely sorry to inform the public of the failure of the grand jury at its recent sitting to come up to the mark of its high calling. It found twenty-one true-bills - carrying concealed weapons, disturbing peaceable assemblies, larceny, cursing on the public highway, obtaining money under false pretenses, horse racing on the public highway, shooting at, assault and battery, and retailing spirituous liquors without license, being the offenses discovered. The jury found bills against Mr. B.G. Littlepage, Jr., for carrying concealed weapons and disturbing a peaceable assembly. Evidently they viewed his killing the Negro Ambrose Clark as justifiable. They did not indict him for the offense. They made some investigation of the affair; but they examined witnesses to prove the alleged bad character of the Negro. Doubtless they had before them testimony showing some act of the Negro at the scene of the killing which justified his death; but the fact that they went into the negro's past history demonstrates that they were not satisfied that he did anything on the day he was killed which justified his slayer. Else, if they testimony clearly showed that Mr. Littlepage killed the Negro in self-defense, is it likely that a grand jury, always anxious to dispatch business and adjourn, would have used time investigating the negro's past record? If Mr. Littlepage did not kill the Negro in self-defense, then he should have been indicted either for manslaughter or murder. By no possible distortion of the facts and the law can a case of killing in self-defense be brought out on this Bosco affair. For even if it were true that the Negro had a pistol and used it on the occasion (an allegation which has been strenuously disputed and widely disbelieved) the fact that his slayer or slayers, all armed pursued him (a posse of men against one) down the road and into the church out of which they pulled him to take his life, destroys all possibility of pleading self-defense in law. Now then, if the grand jury refused to find a bill in this case because the act was committed in self defense, it applied some law to the case which is not law at all - excused it on a plea which the district court and the petit jury would not for a moment have entertained. A petit jury, if Mr. Littlepage should have appeared before it for trial, might have received evidence of the negro's bad character as a mitigation and even an excuse for the killing; but the grand jury had no right to hear any evidence on this subject, or having heard it they should by all means have refused to weigh it for anything in their deliberations. Why did not Mr. Madison, the district attorney, so inform the jury? If they acquitted Mr. Littlepage because he killed the Negro in alleged self-defense, why did not Mr. Madison tell them that it was impossible to make such a case out of the killing? Or if they acquitted because the Negro was a bad character, why did he not instruct them that such a plea could be made only in open court before a petit jury? Why did Mr. Madison permit the grand jury to try this case? Now the bulletin is not trying to work any politics into this case; but it knows, and those of its readers who are well-advised know, that one of the duties of the district attorney is to advise the grand jury as to procedure; and Mr. Madison will hardly gainsay the soundness of the Bulletin's assertion that it was erroneous procedure for the grand jury either to twist a case of self-defense out of this instance or to acquit because the Negro was a bad character. It may be that Mr. Madison did so advise the grand jury. Whether he did or not, it is clearly his duty to file an [paragraph missing] .....their business and their social relations. Especially do they observe it in their business relations. In a well organized community a retail grocer will not put in a stock of drugs. No more should a grand jury usurp the function of the petit jury and the district judge. If a man is killed and the circumstances of the killing (not past occurrences) do not show self-defense, then somebody has probably committed a crime; and if the grand jury does not find a bill or bills in the affair it has either committed a grave blunder or willfully done wrong - in either case being guilty of a signal failure of public duty. One of the results of this failure in a public duty is that, if Mr. Madison does not file an "information," the district court is deprived of the opportunity of investigating this killing and trying Mr. Littlepage. Did the grand jury try the case because it believed it could do so more thoroughly than the district court could have done it? Did it accredit to itself more wisdom than Judge Hall and a petit jury possess? If so it committed another grave blunder - one which ought to be quite apparent to itself on reflection, because it is composed of twelve men taken from the same list of names that furnishes the petit jury - twelve men not picked to try an especial case but chosen from the first twenty names on the venire to make a general inspection and investigation of public criminal happenings. Moreover it lacks, in its deliberations, the illuminating presidency of the district judge and the guidance of attorneys for prosecution and defense. The grand jury had no moral right to try this case, even if the law permitted such procedure. Because its course and verdict in the case do not comport with what we expect would have been Judge Hall's. He said: "it had been reported that certain parties had shot and killed a Negro down the Ouachita river near Bosco. There was a period when such acts were done and when the state of the times rendered, in public opinion, such acts necessary. But now there was no necessity for such things being done. Times had changed and all good citizens should rise up and help to put down violations of the law. Not only were affairs of that kind a violation of the law but they were ruining this country. Human life is sacred whether it be that of a Negro or a white man. There are, of course, certain offenses where the people take the law into their own hands, and by common con[ ] there is no [ ] test. But [ ] that no man has a right to take the law into his own hands and proceed to execute it. When that condition of things is reached there is nothing more than a state of anarchy. If such things are allowed once and they go unpunished, parties, are encouraged thereby to go ahead and again perform similar unlawful acts. The time has come when all should have respect for the law." Now this was a brave deliverance in both senses of the word brave, being the bold utterance of a courageous judge - the utterance of a truth which has not been spoken from the bench in these parts in many years, therefore new-sounding, and so dressed in reason and a lofty sense of justice as to command the admiration of all hearts who hope to see the fountains of justice kept pure. What a pity it is that the grand jury displaced Judge Hall. Do you not see now, gentlemen, what you did when you tried this case? The grand jury erred also in its deliberations on the Calhoun disorders, and especially Lowrey's shooting at Barrett and shooting Clampitt. The Bulletin is aware that the testimony of reliable men entirely excused Mr. Lowrey - said he was altogether justified in shooting. But did not the grand jury have some evidence showing he was not at all justified? Testimony to this effect came to this paper - and there was a good deal of it too, the testimony of good men. We believe that some testimony of this sort went before the grand jury. Indeed, we believe that of the dozen witnesses who testified in this affair, the testimony of about half exculpated Lowrey, and that of the other half showed him guilty of a grave offense. Of course we cannot speak with unassailable certainty - but impressions of the transactions of grand juries will leak out, as all men are aware. Now if we are correct in assuming that the testimony was as we have stated, [ ] it not the duty of the grand [ ] to try this case against [ ] to present a bill [ ] ()vering the offense, [ ] district court to [] [ ] have the impression [ ] grand jury did not do [ ] work - they examin[ ] witnesses as they came pell[ ] thorugh the door one at a [ ] of course, but just anyone [ ] any time who happened to press himself through the crowd and jam himself against the door. Wouldn't it have been the part of better sense to have taken witnesses as they related to certain cases, taking up one case at a time and finishing each case and examining all the witnesses in that case before going to something else? # # #