MRS. RAWLINGS IS IN ATLANTA
Wife and Mother of Condemned Men Goes to Beg for Them
Solicitor General Thomas Also Went to Atlanta Last Night, But Had Reached No Decision With Governor up to Noon Today — Rawlings Appears to be Indifferent
(From Wednesday’s Daily)
Mrs. J.G. Rawlings and her daughters have been in Valdosta for two or three days on a visit to J.G. Rawlings and the boys. Mrs. Rawlings visited the jail a number of times yesterday, but left in the afternoon for Atlanta to make an appeal before the governor and the board of pardons for the life of her boys. It is said that she did this in spite of the opposition of her husband, who was bitterly opposed to any such step being taken. It is said that he told her not to do such a thing and that if she did, she would win his enmity. Rawlings has been taking the ground all the time that he would prefer the boys hanged to being sent to the penitentiary for life. Rawlings pretends to be indifferent to his own fate.
Solicitor General Will Thomas also went to Atlanta last night in response to a telegram from the governor, who desired to confer with him in regard to the Rawlings case. The governor, Attorney General Hart, and Solicitor Thomas had a consultation this morning, but no decision was reached in the case.
It is understood that Governor Terrell and the other officials do not feel disposed to grant another respite in the case, as they do not feel that Attorney Cooper has the least grounds for asking for more time, but is simply playing for delay. It is said that he could get indefinite time by picking such flimsy excuses to delay the case.
As a showing of how the interruption in the case is looked upon in other cities, we take the following from the Morning News of this morning, which is only a part of their local story:
“Judge Emory Speer’s stay of execution in the Rawlings case was the talk among the lawyers and laymen of yesterday. The opinion was expressed by some attorneys that Judge Speer should not have interfered with the execution of the death sentence by the state authorities so long as the application for a writ of habeas corpus presented to him did not raise any federal court question or any point that had not been exhaustively threshed out in the state courts.
“The opinion of quite a number was to the effect that Judge Speer could not conscientiously have refused an appeal from his refusal to grant the writ of habeas corpus, but reference to the authorities showed that he had abundant precedent for refusing to do so.”
Without jurisdiction to grant the writ of habeas corpus, I do not see how Judge Speer could assume jurisdiction to grant the stay of execution, said one prominent attorney who has made a specialty of federal court practice. Federal judges generally have ignored petitions for writs of habeas corpus in cases of this character; it has been the policy of federal judges not to delay the process of state courts when the processes of these courts have been exhausted.