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Carrie Brown : Murder In The East River Hotel
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#Post#: 2074--------------------------------------------------
On The Reliability Of Affidavits : Professors Underwood &
Dekle
DIR By: HowBrown1953
Date: August 25, 2023, 6:48 pm
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Lawyers all know that affidavits are not worth much as evidence,
because while submitted under oath, they are mere hearsay if
offered for the truth of the matters asserted in them.
But governors are not bound by the rules of evidence. It is not
hard to see why Governor Odell acted as he did.
-Page 79, 'Gaslight Lawyers', Professor Richard H. Underwood,
2017
Shadeland House Modern Press
According to Professor Dekle on page 228 of his 'The East River
Ripper', this fact was amply demonstrated by the contemporary
case of 'People vs. Carlyle W. Harris'.
In that case, attorney William Howe had compiled a good number
of affidavits exculpating his client and presented them to
Governor Flower.
Flower, unlike Odell, appointed a commissioner to take the
testimony of the affiants to help him decide whether to grant
the pardon.
D.A. Nicoll opposed the petition and Francis Wellman
cross-examined the affiants.
Wellman completely destroyed the credibility of almost all the
affiants.
Governor Flower denied the pardon, based on how skillfully
Wellman demolished the more important affidavits, and Harris
would be electrocuted in Sing Sing on May 8, 1893.
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This excerpt is from an article in the New York Times which
appeared on the day of Harris's execution is revealing on how
affiants can be 'bought' if enough money is flashed in front of
them.
New York Times May 8, 1893
"Mr. Potts ( father of murder victim) declares positively that
money was used by the defense in securing affidavits from
certain individuals in Asbury Park ( New Jersey ) abd elsewhere.
He intimates that favorable affidavits for Harris were secured
only after Mrs. Harris ( Carlyle's mother) came to Asbury Park
with two certified checks for $500.00 each" ( $500 in 1893 is
equal to $17,000.00 in 2023)
Note: William Howe was Harris's attorney. He and his sidekick
attorney, Abe Hummel were legendary and not necessarily in
positive ways.
Howe and Hummel was a New York City law firm, celebrated in the
latter half of the nineteenth century and principally renowned
for its active involvement in the world of crime and corruption.
Well worth reading this article :
HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howe_and_Hummel
Could this be what happened with certain affiants and their
affidavits in 1901? If so, there were no shysters like Howe
involved, in fact no attorneys were involved at all in 1901.
Only George Damon, his four affidavits and two associates with
theirs.
With our knowledge that Damon's story of the hired hand and the
key are as phony as a three-dollar bill and that no one
cross-examined any of the pro-Ali affidavit filers, it would
have been interesting to see Wellman get his hands on the
virtually scripted affidavits from all three: Damon, Lee, and
Brennan. to see how he'd handle them.
#Post#: 2075--------------------------------------------------
Re: On The Reliability Of Affidavits : Professors Underwood
& Dekle
DIR By: HowBrown1953
Date: August 25, 2023, 8:13 pm
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With a 'get out of trouble' letter from the Governor of New
Jersey and support from a number of other individuals, a
petition with over 2,000 names, the persistent effort of the
French Government, and encouragement from some Manhattan
newspapers, it isn't hard to see how Governor Odell commuted
Ali's sentence.
It doesn't settle the question of whether Ali was actually
innocent or not since the original trial attorneys were no
longer involved or even interested in this one case out of the
many they had tackled while at the D.A.'s Office a decade
earlier.
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