As in some previous posts, I am utilizing excerpts from Big Trouble. Being it is a rather big book with the regressive/progressive writing style of Lukas, a lot of folks are not able to tackle reading it. So sprinkled throughout the blog I try to give readers a flavor of the pertinent pages that apply to various historical points of interest.
From Big Trouble by J. Anthony Lukas:
"The new year dawn was cold and clear. At the Canyon County Probate Court, the first business of 1906 was an appearance by Johnson, who presented a complaint charging Hogan with murder in the first degree. Judge M. I. Church, recently recovered from typhoid fever, was on the bench. He issues a warrant and, toward four that afternoon, Nichols and a deputy strode into the Saratoga bar, where Hogan was having a drink—for the first time since his arrival in Caldwell he'd been drinking heavily—and arrested him. Putting up no resistance, he let the sheriff escort him to the office of county prosecutor, Owen Van Duyn, in the courthouse. There Van Duyn advised Hogan of the charges against him."
"...to give his (McParland's) operation the camouflage of routine extradition, it would be necessary for Owen Van Duyn, the county attorney, and M. I. Church, the probate judge, to play out their prescribed roles. Van Duyn would have to file formal complaints against the three federation leaders, and on that basis Church would have to issue warrants for their arrest."
"On February 8, Governor Gooding summoned Van Duyn to the state-house for a cursory briefing on Orchard's confession. At thirty-one the state's youngest prosecutor, Van Duyn was a graduate of the University of Oregon, had read law at a firm in Eugene, and in 1900 had moved to Nampa, where he served one year as city attorney. Since his election as Canyon County attorney in 1904, he'd won over 70 percent of the criminal cases he'd prosecuted. A curious-looking fellow, with slicked-down hair, watery eyes, and a prissy mouth—all of this perched unsteadily atop a dandy's high stretched collar—he was pliant and resolute. To McParland's relief, when Van Duyn heard what the detective had been up to he was 'simply dazed, but did not seem to take any offense that this fact had been concealed from him to the present time.' With that, Hawley took over, instructing Van Duyn in exacting detail as to how the complaints and warrants should be drawn up and how to explain what he was dong to Judge Church, Sheriff Nichols, and Nichol's deputies."—Big Trouble by J. Anthony Lukas
More to come.
*If you would like to take a look at the wonderful old Canyon County Probate Court Criminal Docket shown above, rescued by a dumpster diver, meander on over to the College of Idaho Archives in Sterry Hall, Caldwell, Idaho.
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