BarbarousMexico JOHN KENNETH TURNER

292 BARBAROUS MEXICO
held incommunicado in the Los Angeles county jail,
which means that no visitors, not even newspaper men,
were permitted to see them. For a time not even Mrs.
Rivera and her children were permitted to see the husband
and father. Only their local attorney saw them.
Two attorneys who were representing them in another
state were excluded on the flimsy ground that they were
not attorneys of record in California.
The only excuse Oscar Lawler, United States District
Attorney, had to offer for this severe isolation
when, in July, 1908, I called upon him at his office and
protested was:
"We are doing this at the request of the Mexican
government. They have accommodated its and it's no
more than right that we accommodate tlzc,n."
Requests were also made by the Mexican government
that the men be not admitted to bail and the requests
were obeyed. The privilege of liberty on bail pending
trial is guaranteed by the law to all accused persons
below the murderer in cold blood, and yet Judge Welborn,
sitting both as district and circuit judge, denied
the men this privilege. Bail had previously been fixed
as $5,000, ten times the amount required in similar cases
that had previously come up. In the latter part of July,
1908, this amount was raised and presented in the most
gilt-edged form, but it was not accepted. judge Welborn's
excuse was that a rule of the Supreme Court
says that during habeas corpus proceedings the custody
of a prisoner shall not be changed. This rule he strangely
interpreted to mean that these particular prisoners
should not he admitted to bail.
During their six months of incommunicado, when
the prisoners were unable to make any public statement,
Lawler took advantage of their enforced silence