Extras - Alice Mitchell Trial of 1892
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Miss Mitchell's Trial
MOVES PRELIMINARY TO IT BEING MADE BY COUNSEL ON BOTH SIDES.Memphis, Tenn., Feb. 22. - To-morrow morning theh Mitchell-Johnson-Ward murder case will come to the front again, when Judget Dubose of the Criminal Court will render his decision on the motion of Alice Mitchell's counsel for an order giving them access to the correspondence in the hands of the the Attorney General. It is thought that the Judge will refuse the order, but in case he grants it, the Attorney General will move for an order requiring the defense to permit him to inspect certain letters in their possession, which he would like very much to get a peep at.
This motion disposed of the habeas corpus proceeding in Lillie Johnson's behalf will be taken up. The length of time it will consume will depend upon the extent to which the testimony is gone into. It may be concluded in an hour or it may last all this week.
Among the advertised letters left at the Post Office uncalled for is the one addressed to "Miss Jessie R. James." and another addressed to "Miss Jessie Freda James." those being two of the nom de plumes assumed by Alice Mitchell and Lillie Johnson in the correspondence they have been carrying on with callow youths in different parts of the country. The Attorney General would like to get hold of these letters; so would the lawyers for the defense; but neither can get them, aud Postmaster Patterson would not surrender them, even on the order of the two girls, since he knows the names on the envelopes to be assumed. Hence, after having remained in the local office the length of time prescribed by law, they will be sent on to Washington to the Dead Letter Office.
During the last ten days Alice Mitchell's counsel have been busilyl engaged in getting evidence of insanity in her family on the "Distaff" side, so as to bring the full weight of the theory of hereditary lunacy to bear. In addition to the insanity of Mrs. Mitchell, who was an inmate of an asylum in O'hio sometime before Alice's birth, the lawyers for the defense claim to have discovered that a sister and an uncle of Mrs. Mitchell were also confined in an asylum.
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