The Cleveland Daily Herald
Cleveland, May 12, 1859
The Rescue Cases – Trial of Langston.
We stated the fact in yesterdayÕs paper that the remaining trials are postponed until the July Term. On the coming in of the Court the Judge asked the counsel for Langston if they had any motion to make in his case. Mr. Riddle replied that they had not.
Court was about to adjourn when Mr. Riddle asked that the journal entry of the Court be corrected so as to state the facts as they were understood; he asked not that the Court should erase the present journal entry, not that the Court should take back anything it had said, but simply the naked justice of having a special journal entry made that should not leave these defendants in the false position they now occupy. Counsel stated that defendants did not intend to surrender themselves into custody, they did not wish to lie in jail but supposed they were ordered into custody by the District Attorney. The motion was merely to explain the facts in case. In support of this motion and a motion for an immediate trial, the affidavit of John Watson was read, containing, among other things the following:
That he was arraigned before this tribunal on the 5th of December, 1858, and plead Ònot guilty,Ó to said indictment, and demanded an immediate trial. At the instance of the U.S. District Attorney the trial was at that time postponed, and this defendant entered into a recognizance in the sum of one thousand dollars for his appearance in this Court on the 2d day of March, 1859. Before that day arrived, however, at the instance of the U.S. District Attorney, and for his special accommodation, a further postponement of the trial of defendant duly appeared in Court, and thereafter regularly appeared from day to day, until the 15the day of April, 1859, when on motion of the U.S. District Attorney, he was ordered into the custody of the U.S. Marshal for the Northern District of Ohio, and was on the same day last mentioned, by him committed to close confinement, in the County Jail of the County of Cuyahoga, in the State of Ohio, where he has ever since been and is now, restrained of his liberty, and awaiting his trial upon no other charge than that contained in said indictment of rescuing a fugitive from service.
This affiant says that it is not true that, anterior to the time when he was place I close confinement in the jail of Cuyahoga County as aforesaid, he had ever contemplated a breach of his recognizance, voluntarily entered into as aforesaid, and it is not true that at any time he surrendered himself in discharge of his said recognizance; nor yet is it true that his counsel proposed to surrender him in discharge of his recognizance; on the contrary, this defiant says, that he should undoubtedly at this moment be at large upon his said recognizance, if he had not been ordered into custody as aforesaid on the 15th day of April aforesaid, upon the motion of the U.S. District Attorney as aforesaid.
This affiant further says that the journal entry of this Court, made on the 15th day of April aforesaid, so far as the same purports to show that this defendant in connection with other individuals resting under similar charge, surrendered himself in discharge of his recognizance, was made under a mistaken conception of the facts as they transpired, and so long as said journal entry is permitted to stand in force this defendant will be unable, consistently with the preservation of his own self-respect, to renew his individual recognizance, or to give bail for his appearance at a subsequent term of this Court. He must there fore continue to lie in jail unless he can have the benefit of a speedy trial.
Quite an argument sprang up between counsel, occupying an hour or more.
The Court refused to allow any journal entry to be made explanatory of the facts as stated by defendantsÕ counsel. It is well known the defendants and their counsel pronounce the entry as it now stands to be absolutely false and manufactured for the emergency, and one of the defendants in his affidavit has sworn that it is false.