Note 361 — Chapter XXIII · The Defense Becomes Arrogant.

District Attorney Langdon, in an affidavit filed in the case of The People vs. Patrick Calhoun et al., No. 823, states his attitude toward Ruef. Mr. Langdon says:

“Affiant further avers and declares that if affiant believed that the defendant Ruef had fully and fairly performed his part of the agreement, and had honestly rendered such service to the State as would have entitled him to the consideration set forth in the immunity contract, this affiant would have moved in open court to dismiss the indictments against defendant Ruef, and if said motion were denied and affiant was directed by the Court or any other official to proceed with the trial of said defendant, this affiant would have declined to do so, and after exhausting every resource at his command to carry out the terms and conditions of said immunity agreement, would have resigned his official position of District Attorney of the City and County of San Francisco, rather than prosecute the defendant Ruef.

“This affiant avers that it was only when he became convinced that the defendant Ruef was still traitorous to the State he had debauched, and whose laws he had defied, and that instead of trying to make reparation for the wrong he had done, was endeavoring not only to save himself from the punishment he so richly deserved, but also was endeavoring to make certain the escape from punishment of his co-defendants, that affiant determined the immunity contract to have been broken by Ruef, and no longer in force and effect.”