Thelma's Trial Comes to an Unusual Ending

09-29-1917 Springfield Leader and Press pages 1 and 5 – Mrs. Haston Freed of Accusations by Trial of Daughter, Girl Thelma, Acquitted; defense attorney (Judge Neville) trapped Maggie Chandler in false identification of the black-haired man with the golden teeth she claimed to have had improper relations with; “then came the realization that Mrs. Haston was not guilty as charged and that her daughter was not delinquent as was charged”; the attorneys met with Judge Guy Kirby in a brief recess and told him to the take the case in his hands and do as he thought best;
 

Judge Guy Kirby concluded: “This is one of those cases where judgment ought not to take place.  The court won’t permit the jury to brand this little girl a delinquent.  Furthermore, I want to say that some of the girls who were connected with this case are as innocent of any wrongdoing as Caesar’s wife”; “A conviction of the Haston girl would put a stigma on her character that she perhaps could never live down”; toward the end of the trial John Meyers was brought into court from jail to tell of a fishing trip he and his wife and Thelma and another man had taken, but John Meyers admitted of going to the front door but never was inside the Haston house; his wife was mentioned in the case as the “woman in black.”; Maggie Chandler never said she was frightened into making her confession;
 

The judge stated, “It is “far better to let 99 guilty persons go free than to convict one innocent one.”  Judge said he was “not passing innocence or guilt on Thelma and Mrs. Haston but was going to dismiss the case.”

Blackstone’s ratio = “It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” (a maxim in early English law)

“Congratulations from many persons in the courtroom, for Thelma and Mrs. Haston and her husband followed.  Crowds shook hands with them and wished them success.”