The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Complete Contents...

On page 2589 Mr. Rerdell swears positively that he did not know that he was to be used as a witness for the Government until he was called in court to take the stand. Let us look at the evidence of Mr. Bliss on page 2590. I will read you what he said:

Mr. Bliss. Your Honor, we propose to show, in substance, that this witness, for reasons with which we have nothing to do, connected with his own views of his own safety, from an early period was desirous of being accepted by the Government as a witness; that the counsel in the case refused to communicate with him or to have anything to do with him until, in the presence of his own counsel, he was brought to Mr. Merrick's office, and there the whole thing was explained; and that then for the first time the Government accepted his willingness to be a witness; and they did it under circumstances which held out to him no inducement and which involved no training or anything of the kind by anybody representing the prosecution.

Yet when he rose to withdraw the plea he expressed his willingness to go upon the stand for the Government, leaving you to infer that no arrangement had been made, and he afterwards finally swore that he did not know that he was to be called until he was called.

On page 2515 Rerdell swears that on the Sunday after he got out of jail he proposed to Mr. Lilley to have Lilley act for him, and authorized Lilley to say to the Government that if the Government would accept him he would go on the stand and rebut Vaile. He told him that he had in his possession a letter or two of Mr. Vaile's. Rerdell tells you that he made this proposition on the 16th or 17th of September, 1882, which was after he made the affidavit of June, 1881. On the same page he said it was just after Vaile went off the stand. That is my recollection. In the last trial Vaile testified on the 4th of August, 1882. So about that time Rerdell, according to his testimony, went to Lilley and made a proposition to sell out then. When he made the affidavit of July 13, 1882, the trial was then in progress. The very next month, August, while the trial was still going on, that same man, having made the affidavit of July 13, 1882, went to his attorney, Mr. Lilley, and authorized him to say to the Government that Mr. Rerdell would take the stand to swear against Mr. Vaile. Remember another thing, gentlemen. The only thing he offered to do then to insure his own safety was to swear against Vaile. He did not offer to swear against Dorsey. He did not authorize Mr. Lilley to tell the Government about the pencil memorandum and the tabular statement and his letter to Bosler and Doisey's letter to Bosler and the Chico letter. Not a word. He simply went and wanted to sell some letters he had that had been written by Vaile. Why did he make that offer? Because that was all he had.

On page 2517 he says that nothing was said about pardon, but he says that Lilley told him that he thought he could get him off. What does that mean? That means pardon. On page 2518 he swears that he saw Woodward in November in Hartford, and Woodward and he wrote out the statement, covering, I believe, about seventy pages of legal cap. Then Mr. Rerdell, on page 2519, swears that he never made an affidavit after that. Then he admits, on the same page, that the day before he came into court he met Mr. Woodward and made another affidavit. That was supplementary to the first. In the meantime he found some new papers. So we find, according to his testimony, these affidavits:

Now, gentlemen, one point more about his plea of guilty. After having withdrawn his plea of not guilty, after rising in court and solemnly saying that he was guilty, and that he was guilty as charged in the indictment, which says that Rerdell conspired with Brady and Vaile and Miner and John W. Dorsey and S. W. Dorsey and Turner, that they all conspired, and that all the false affidavits and false petitions and false everything else mentioned in the indictment were made for the common benefit of all, then on page 2570 he solemnly swears that he never entered into any conspiracy or agreement with the defendants mentioned in the indictment or any of them for the purpose of defrauding the Government. When I asked him, With whom did you conspire, when did you conspire, and what was the conspiracy? he could not tell; and yet he had stood up in court and admitted that he was guilty, and then on oath denied it. Did he not swear himself that after the division was made in the routes Stephen W. Dorsey had not the interest of a cent in any route that went to Vaile or Miner? Did he not also swear that Vaile and Miner had not the interest of one cent in any route that went to Stephen W. Dorsey? Did he not swear that they were not mutually interested, and yet did he not stand up in court, and by a plea of guilty say that they were not only mutually interested, but he was one of the interested parties himself? It seems impossible for that man to tell the truth on any subject whatever. On page 2571 he swears he never made any agreement with Vaile to defraud the United States.

He stood up in court and admitted, that he had. He swore that he never made any agreement with John W. Dorsey. He admitted that he had. He swore that he never made any agreement with S. W. Dorsey, and yet stood up in court and admitted that he had.

The next point I wish to make, if the Court please, is that whenever what is called an accomplice or an informer turns what is called State's evidence, and whenever he is permitted by the court to be sworn as a witness in a case, there is then upon the part of the Government an implied promise that if he tells the truth he shall not be punished. I read from the Whiskey cases, 9 Otto, page 595. Mr. Justice Clifford delivers the opinion of the court.

Courts of justice everywhere agree that the established usage is that an accomplice duly admitted as a witness in a criminal prosecution against his associates in guilt, if he testifies fully and fairly, will not be prosecuted for the same offence, and some of the decided cases and standard text-writers give very satisfactory explanations of the origin and scope of the usage in its ordinary application in actual practice.

I make the point that when an accomplice turns State's evidence the State cannot prosecute him after that if he testifies fully and fairly; that the usage is immemorial, and that there is not an exception in the records of all the cases in the books; consequently that when Mr. Merrick told him, "You must look simply to the Government and to the Court and you will have just exactly what the law gives you and no more," his remarks meant that the law gave him perfect immunity, provided he went upon the stand and swore truthfully.

When he went to the Government he understood the law to be that if he swore fully and fairly, or if he swore in such a way that they could not prove that he did not swear fully and fairly, he was to have immunity. He understood that the more he swore against the defendants the better was his chance for immunity. He knew that the Government would never complain of any lie he swore against the defendants.

Now, the next question is what is the law of accomplices, of informers? There was a remark made by Mr. Bliss in his speech, that they had plenty of evidence in this case without the testimony of Mr. Walsh or Mr. Moore or Mr. Rerdell; plenty of evidence without the testimony of Mr. Rerdell. If that had been so then the Government had no right to put Mr. Rerdell on the stand. There is but one excuse for using the testimony of a man who pleads guilty, and that is that without his testimony a conviction cannot, in all probability, be obtained. And upon that point I refer to 10 Pickering, 478, and to 9 Cowen, 711; and not only upon that point, but upon the point I made at first, that whenever you put such a man upon the stand that of itself amounts to a promise of absolute immunity:

The object of admitting the evidence of accomplices is in order to effect the discovery and punishment of crimes which cannot be proved against the offenders without the aid of an accomplice's testimony. In order to prevent this entire failure of justice recourse is had to the evidence of accomplices.—I Phillips on Evidence, 107.

Mr. Merrick. May I be allowed to suggest a point which probably you would like to comment upon—that all these cases refer to accomplices prior to the trial. My own opinion in reference to the case was that I would not put Rerdell upon the stand until he had pleaded guilty.