Law: Cough Medicine

A nattily-dressed railroad electrician named Roy O. Widener, 35, was tried in Sacramento, Calif. fortnight ago for flourishing a gun at his landlady and robbing her of $60. While Superior Judge Dal M. Lemmon was instructing the jury, Widener was seized with a coughing fit, left the room to recover, accompanied by two bailiffs. Back in his courtroom chair, Widener heard the finish of Judge Lemmon’s jury charge, later heard the jury find him guilty of first-degree robbery and burglary.

Last week Lawyer Brannely learned of the incident, moved for a new trial on the basis of an 1855 California ruling in the case of People v. Kohler that “the prisoner, in case of a felony, must be present during the whole of his trial.” Judge Lemmon ruled that this prisoner had been absent only momentarily and the law cited was not applicable. Then he sentenced Roy Widener to an indeterminate term of five years to life in San Quentin Prison.