Frank Boyett column: Multiple gambling indictments failed to score in 1947
The grand jury indicted nearly two dozen people on gambling charges in January 1947, but the indictments were later quashed on a technicality. One of their defenses was that the prosecutor had hand-picked the grand jury.
That legal battle marked the first time the issue of women being excluded from jury duty was raised. It took another decade for local women – and Blacks – to win equal footing in deciding the fate of their fellow human beings.
The re-trial of Charles Sitton, the youth who shot and killed police officer Jack Rainier Nov. 21, 1955, prompted Blacks and women to be included in the jury pool in May 1956. No women heard that case, although Black funeral home operator Charles A. Reeder was seated on that jury.
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Cornelia Brown was the first woman to serve on a jury locally when she helped decide an auto accident case in mid-June 1956.
But the issue of women on juries was almost an afterthought in the courtroom drama about gambling in early 1947. Most of the lawyers representing the multiple defendants did not consider that issue worthy of raising in their arguments. The sole exception was L.C. Flournoy.
The Gleaner picked up on the indictments in its Jan. 9, 1947, issue although the problems involved had begun two months earlier. (It was the fourth batch of gambling indictments prior to the last one in 1951; others had been in 1940, 1941 and 1943.)
Those indicted included Art Bridges, Starling McClure, Clarence Fambrough, Roy C. Freels, Allen Wilson, Paul Barr, Clyde Langford, Aubrey Richardson, Robert and Frederick Nichols, and Henry Steinwachs,
Also, Robert J. Bennett, Otto Bunch, James and Anna F. Head, J.C. and Kate Ligon, Thomas Jennings, G.T. O’Bryan, Carl Pearson, Clarence Wood, and Oswald “Poss” Coomes.
Those named had been operating slot machines although a few others – who were not named – had been indicted for operating crap games. Most of them were owners of nightclubs or taverns.
The defense attorneys responded by filing motions to quash the indictments, which was reported in The Gleaner of Jan. 21. The motions were almost identical, except for Flournoy’s, who noted there were 1,652 women on the tax rolls then but they had been excluded from participation in the jury selection process.
State law mandated the circuit judge to create a jury commission at the beginning of each year, which was responsible for creating a jury pool of more than 500 property owners, although the pool and the grand jury drawn from it weren’t legitimate until the judge had signed off on them.
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The names of those in the jury pool were to be placed in a wheel and the grand jury and the petit juries for each year were created by names drawn by the judge from that wheel after it was tumbled. The judge was supposed to keep the key that locked the wheel, while the circuit court clerk was to keep the wheel and the envelope with the grand jurors’ names.
The defense attorneys alleged that the grand jury had been illegally created because that process was not followed – the judge never signed off on the jury. Another thorny issue was that County Attorney Allen Rhoads had been present in the jury room while the jury commission was working.
As it turned out, Rhoads wasn’t the only one. The only people who were supposed to be in the room were the jury commissioners, who had been appointed by Circuit Judge Marlin Blackwell Nov. 8, 1946. Later testimony revealed that Tax Commissioner Waverlie Crafton as well as Ditch Commissioner Walter Kellen were also in the jury room.
Furthermore, the Jan. 30 edition reported that Circuit Court Clerk Karl “Doc” Hosbach said the grand jury had not been composed of the first 12 names on the list provided by the jury commission. He said he had “skipped around” in selecting jurors. He declined to answer when asked who had asked him to “skip around.”
At that point, the county attorney stood up and clarified he had told Hosbach to do that. He also conceded he had given a list of prospective grand jury members to jury commissioner John W. Gregory, who also took the stand.
Gregory testified there were three different lists of “good men” in the room while the jury commissioners were working. If names on those lists also were taxpayers, he said, they were added to the jury pool.
Gregory also noted “the commissioners agreed among themselves not to use the names of women.”
Another member of the jury commission was City School Board Chairman James F. Meyer, who said he had a list given to him by Waverlie Crafton and Richard S. Staples.
The third jury commissioner, Omer Campbell, conceded the wheel and its key were not delivered to the circuit judge as required by law. Instead, both were given to Hosbach. One reason for that, perhaps, is that Judge Blackwell had been sick at his home in Dixon for weeks.
Madisonville Circuit Judge B.N. Gordon subsequently heard the case. He upheld the state on every issue except for the mishandling of the wheel and its key, which he said endangered “the sanctity of the whole jury system.”
That prompted him to quash the indictments, although he said the cases could be submitted later to the May grand jury. (That’s exactly what happened, although virtually all the cases were eventually dismissed.)
Meanwhile, acting Judge Gordon had formed a new jury commission, according to The Gleaner of Jan. 24. They were Henry Taylor, Emory Cottingham and J.I. Farley. The judge instructed them on the niceties of their task and took care to point out “it is legal to choose names of women who are taxpayers and housekeepers in the county to go into the wheel.”
During the lengthy hearing right before the judge quashed the indictments, one of the defense attorneys, N. Powell Taylor, said he had seen no indication that any official had acted with criminal intent in creating the jury commission and the jury pool, although, “They may have acted improperly.”
The Gleaner carried two letters to the editor about the issue and the first was published Jan. 25. Art Nestler said he found it incongruous that the owners of nightclubs were being indicted for having slot machines, while private fraternal clubs doing the same thing but were considered untouchable.
“Doing it behind closed doors is the same thing and any grand jury who fails to indict them all is very discriminating.”
The second was by George D. Haas and it appeared Feb. 5: “In my opinion the jury was selected in the same manner that it has been for years. It is surprising to me that as an intelligent group of lawyers (who) were opposing the way the grand jury was selected, that they were just now finding out that it was not done according to law.”
100 years ago
A fellow in Dixon apparently couldn’t get enough marital bliss.
Robert F. Donaldson was in jail there, according to The Gleaner of Jan. 28, 1922, because he married two additional wives in less than a week.
His first was Luda Dyer at Senaca, South Carolina, on April 9, 1921. The second was the daughter of a widow who ran a hotel at Shawneetown, Illinois, on Nov. 30. The final one was Lela Trice of Dixon on Dec. 5.
50 years ago
Henderson was among 15 cities in Kentucky who had taken advantage of federal money to train what we now call EMTs, according to The Gleaner of Jan. 30, 1972.
RN Gloria Fleming Sierra was the instructor for the local emergency medical technician class, which drew 19 participants initially. Dr. Dick Wham assisted with the program.
The course consisted of 25 lessons involving 71 hours of classroom training, plus ten hours of in-hospital observation, for a total of 81 hours.
“Each lesson provides for practice of the skills taught in that lesson.”
25 years ago
Owens Corning Fiberglas Corp. decided against building a plant here to manufacture insulation, ending two years of hope the community would land a $68 million facility that would employ 120 people, according to The Gleaner of Jan. 29, 1997.
The company had taken an option to buy 126 acres offered by the Economic Development Council but notified the EDC it would not exercise that option from the Termo Co. of Long Beach, California. The property is on Kentucky 136 next to the Henderson County Riverport.
The company had first come to the public’s attention in early 1995 when it received the state of Kentucky’s approval for $30 million in tax breaks if it located here.
Readers of The Gleaner can reach Frank Boyett at YesNews42@yahoo.com or on Twitter at @BoyettFrank.
This article originally appeared on Henderson Gleaner: Frank Boyett: Multiple gambling indictments failed to score in 1947
