Just before the Legislature convened, Abe Ruef, had, as example, been
convicted by a jury in the securing of which the metropolis of the State
had been raked as with a fine-tooth comb for talesmen who were not
technically disqualified to serve. Thousands were available who would
have given the defendant a fair trial, but in all San Francisco very few
could be found who were not because of one technical reason or another
disqualified.

After conviction came the defendant's appeal, in which the Most trivial
reasons were accepted for freeing the defendant whose technical defense
had failed him in the lower Courts. Former Mayor Schmitz of San
Francisco, after conviction of extortion, and Abe Ruef, after having
pleaded guilty to the charge, were given their freedom under
circumstances which, to put it mildly, shocked the whole State.

[73] A prominent San Francisco attorney told the writer recently that
"the criminal lawyer too often questions a talesman needlessly, not so
much to disqualify him, as to get technical error into the record."

[73a] It was on a technicality of this kind that the District Court of
Appeals found excuse for reversal of the judgment in the case of Louis
Glass, convicted of bribing a member of the San Francisco Board of
Supervisors. E. J. Zimmer, the auditor of the Pacific States Telephone
Company, of which Glass was an official, refused to testify at Glass'
trial. The trial court refused to instruct the jury to disregard the
refusal. The Appellate Court held this to be a fatal error.