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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

100 years ago in Spokane: Jurors accused of perjury in bootlegging case

Published in the Dec. 15, 1920 Spokane Daily Chronicle.  (S-R archives)
By Jim Kershner The Spokesman-Review

The jurors in the Charles Dale bootlegging case were in trouble again, although this time not because they sampled the liquor evidence in the jury room.

Now they were faced with a more serious charge. Detective Roy Fordyce, who had arrested Dale, said he wanted perjury charges filed against three of the jurors.

He claimed that they had announced in the jury room that the police force “were a bunch of crooks” and unworthy of belief. This, after all of the jurors had asserted under oath that they would “give the testimony of a police officer as much credence as the testimony of any other witnesses.”

In fact, Fordyce claimed that the police had once raided the house of one of the woman jurors for liquor. When she told the story to the other jurors, she said she was “too smart for the police” and had hidden the liquor at a neighbors.

From the labor beat: About 1,000 hotel chambermaids in Spokane were owed $78,000 in back pay because of a recent decision by the State Supreme Court affirming the $18-a-week minimum wage for women.

In addition, the city’s 1,500 women restaurant workers would also get some relief due to the ruling, but not back pay. Instead, women restaurant workers would now get one day off a week, while getting the same $18 per-week pay they were currently getting.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

2013: Nelson Mandela was laid to rest in his childhood hometown, ending a 10-day mourning period for South Africa’s first Black president.