The Jailhouse Affidavit Scandal
A convicted man seeks to overturn his accomplice's sentence by claiming a deputy attorney coerced a false confession.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
An affidavit signed by Walter Bruinsma, recently released from the county jail after serving a three-months' sentence for stealing a watch and Masonic ring from J. C. Gordon while the latter was intoxicated, was today presented to Prosecuting Attorney J. L. McMurray by John Kilgour, who was also convicted and sentenced to six months' imprisonment for the same crime. The affidavit claims that Bruinsma was influenced by former Deputy County Attorney H. R. Lea to perjure himself in the case, and that Kilgour did not have anything to do with the affair. The affidavit was signed February 20, and is witnessed by Geo. W. Jarvis and F. H. Pilling, prisoners at the county jail. Little stock is taken in the affidavit, as both Bruinsma and Kilgour have long police records. Mr. Lea absolutely denies the allegation, claiming that it is a pure fabrication and that it is just an attempt on Bruinsma's part to get his partner out of jail.
“Little stock is taken in the affidavit, as both Bruinsma and Kilgour have long police records.”
Accusations of prosecutorial misconduct and coerced testimony remain a flashpoint in the American justice system. This 1909 case highlights how marginalized defendants have long used whatever limited avenues they could find—like jailhouse affidavits—to challenge a legal system they felt had unfairly targeted them.
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