Acquitted at Noon, Back in Handcuffs by One O'Clock
Frank Goodrich spent five months in the county jail awaiting trial on a charge of enticing Chinese laborers. A federal jury cleared him — and he tasted freedom for only a few minutes before a deputy marshal seized him on a fresh complaint.
Frank Goodrich was tried in the United States court Tuesday on a charge of enticing Chinese and found not guilty. As he had been in the county jail for five months, he was happy — but his liberty only lasted a few minutes, for Deputy Marshal Quilter rearrested him on another charge and turned him over to Deputy Sheriff McDonald. Some time since, Goodrich bought a pair of mules in Tacoma and in payment therefor gave his promissory note for $150 and executed a chattel mortgage on an engine and boiler, which it proved he did not own.
“As he had been in the county jail for five months, he was happy, but his liberty only lasted a few minutes.”
A man walks out of a federal courtroom cleared of one charge and is clapped in irons on another before he reaches the street — a reminder that acquittal has never guaranteed release. The first charge, 'enticing Chinese,' belongs to the machinery of the Chinese Exclusion era, when merely drawing Chinese laborers away from a contract could be prosecuted as a crime. Then as now, the paperwork of who was allowed to be here and who was free to go was itself a weapon.
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