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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday September 3, 1914
Salt Lake City, Utah – Joe Hill Denied New Trial by Judge Ritchie
September 2, 1914
Joe Hill appeared Tuesday before Judge M. L. Ritchie accompanied by his attorney, Soren X. Christensen. Christensen presented an argument for a new trial stating that:
1). Hill had not been identified as the man who killed the store owner, Morrison.
2). There had been only one thing proven beyond a reasonable doubt, and that was that Hill had been shot on the same night that Morrison was killed.
3). The jury had been prejudiced when, in the presence of the jury, Hill fired his own attorneys (Scott and McDougall) These same attorneys were then retained by the court as friends of the court contrary to the wishes of the defendant.
4). The jurymen were not impartial but were inclined to favor the prosecution. On this point, Christensen argued that: “That jury was selected by a science at which the district attorney is a past master and the defendant’s attorneys were unskilled.”
District Attorney E. O. Leatherwood insisted that the trial was fair and had been conducted in strict accordance with the law, and that Hill should be executed on the date set by Judge Ritchie [September 4, 1914].
Judge Ritchie ruled for the prosecution.
Christensen immediately filed for an appeal to the Utah Supreme Court which again stays the execution of Fellow Worker Joe Hill, for now.
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SOURCES
Quote Joe Hill, General Strike, Workers Awaken, LRSB p6, Oct 1919
https://archive.org/details/SongsOfTheWorkers15thEd/page/n9/mode/2up
The Case of Joe Hill
by Philip S. Foner
International Publishers, 1965
(search: “september 1914”) p54-55
https://books.google.com/books?id=4CxM_t80dqoC
IMAGE
Sept 2, 1914, Salt Lake Herald p12,
-Hillstrom Denied New Trial, Appeal to be Filed, Execution Stayed
https://www.newspapers.com/image/896673209/
See also:
Tag: Joseph Hillstrom
https://weneverforget.org/tag/joseph-hillstrom/
Tag: Joe Hill
https://weneverforget.org/tag/joe-hill/
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