Raleigh, N.C.—The case of State against Jesse Wyatt is scheduled to be called for trial in Wake County Superior Court on next Tuesday, and the people of North Carolina will have a legal battle on which they can focus their attention at closer range than is possible in the case of the Scopes trial at Dayton, Tenn.
The case has attracted tremendous interest since June 1, when Wyatt, then captain of the plainclothes squad of the Raleigh police force, and Chief of Police Winder Bryan thought the car in which Stephen S. Holt, prominent Smithfield lawyer was riding, was a rum runner. Wyatt fired and the bullet killed Holt instantly.
An indictment charging Wyatt with murder, on which Solicitor W.F. Evans had stated he would not ask for a verdict greater than murder in the second degree, was quashed at the special June term by Judge Frank A. Daniels.
At that term an array of defense attorneys after battling three days for a continuance hit upon the expedient of moving to quash the indictment on the ground that the grand jury indicting Wyatt was drawn last December by a child over 10 years of age, contrary to the statute. The motion was allowed, and it will be necessary for the solicitor to send a new indictment at the term, which begins on Monday.
It is regarded as a foregone conclusion that Judge W.A. Devin, who was commissioned by the Governor to hold the term in the place of Judge Garland E. Midyette, who is ill, will have to pass on numerous motions by counsel for the defense. At the time the indictment was quashed defense attorneys thought they had succeeded in carrying the case over until the September term as the grand jury for July had already been drawn by the same boy who drew the preceding grand jury. However, it was discovered that the jury had been ordered to report on July 6 instead of on July 13, and a new venire of 36 men from whom will come the 18 grand jurors, was drawn under a special statute by Sheriff D. Bryant Harrison, Register of Deeds W.H. Penny and justices of the Peace E. Lloyd Tilly and J.E. Owens.
Defense attorneys have already intimated they will attack the validity of the drawing on the ground that Mr. Tilley is also assistant clerk of the Wake County Superior Court. Inquiry has also been made as to whether Mr. Owens, one of the oldest justices in the state, is duly qualified.
Chief Bryan has refused to deny that he is a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and the same charge has been made against Wyatt, and this element is also expected to enter into the trial. Solicitor Evans will be assisted by E.S. Abel of Smithfield and Bryant Womble of Raleigh, while Wyatt will be represented by J. Wilbur Bunn, Pou & Pou and Jones, Jones & Horton. The case is expected to consume at least three days.
From the front page of The Smithfield Herald, Tuesday morning, July 14, 1925
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073982/1925-07-14/ed-1/seq-1/
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