Note 292 — Chapter XIX · The Glass Trials and Conviction.

Of the delaying tactics in the Glass case, The San Francisco Call in its issue of August 14, 1907, said:

“Anything to delay trial and judgment is the policy of the accused bribe givers. Every day’s proceedings in the retrial of Glass provides ample proof to convince the most skeptical citizen that the last thing desired by the men charged with debauching the boodle Board of Supervisors is prompt determination of the issues on their merits, and every pettifogging move for delay, every cunning attempt to betray the court into technical error is confession of a case too weak to be given to a fair jury on a plain showing of the facts. The attitude of the lawyers for Glass is sufficient to indicate that he needs lawyers of their peculiar expertness—‘distinguished attorneys,’ Heney calls them—‘distinguished for their ability to defeat justice.’

“Judge Lawlor’s unhesitating denial of a motion to permit the lawyers for Glass to shift their ground in the midst of the impaneling of the jury and hark back to an attack on the validity of the indictments, and his sharp reprimand to Attorney Coogan for his method of misleading talesmen by adroitly framed questions, ought to expedite this trial. Lawlor has a reputation for dealing sternly with legal tricksters and for compelling counsel in the cases that he hears to get down to business and keep at it. At the same time his record on the bench is that of a just judge and always impartial. It is because he is impartial and stern that crooked lawyers, with crooked clients, deem it ‘hard luck’ when their cases are assigned to Lawlor.

“Now Judge Lawlor has a rare opportunity to prove anew his worth as a jurist. He will please a patient and long suffering public and will satisfy the ends of the justice which he administers when he makes the lawyers quit trifling and forces them to let the trial go on. We may expect to see the trial made as tedious and as costly in time and money as high priced counselors can arrange. It is all part of the game—tire out the public, the jury and the prosecution; delay is the safest course for the man accused against whom the people’s case is strong. But we may also expect to see Judge Lawlor trimming the matter of technicalities and pressing it to a conclusion. It was because the people had come to expect such things from Judge Lawlor that they re-elected him, when all the machines of municipal corruption were grinding against him.”