http://www.wjcash.org/WJCash8/Charlotte.News.Articles/8-29-38.htm

 

For a subsequent opinion re "No Hard and Fast Rule", on the Los Angeles Times contempt conviction, after its affirmance by the California Supreme Court, before that opinion was reversed by the United States Supreme Court in an opinion delivered by Justice Black, issued December 8, 1941, see "Contempt", February 4, 1940. (The Hauptmann trial to which incidental reference is made in the piece is of course that of Bruno, the alleged, convicted and executed Lindbergh child kidnaper of 1932. Grave concerns have often been raised as to the reality of his guilt and whether or not the extant fiery vigilante mise en scène surrounding his trial, as fanned by the yellow papers, together with his being German, did not fuel his being tried and convicted long before the twelve sat in deliberation--chief evidence against him having been unreliable eyewitnesses to his having been in the vicinity of the Lindbergh home, a ransom note of his putative but questionable authorship, and his having in his possession some of the alleged ransom money and a hand-crafted wooden ladder used to grab the baby from its second floor room; but ladders are ladders and wood is wood, of a pretty common variety, one would naturally assume; and, speaking of third degree tactics, later accounts suggested the planting of the bulk of the physical evidence and beating of Hauptmann to draw a confession. In any event, he died ignominiously in 1936, proclaiming his innocence to the end, in the midst of a societal circus in Boss Hague's New Jersey.)

That's about all we can say 'bout all that.