Hanging Set For August

An Apache man was convicted of murder for shooting a man in a judicial district of a western territory, and was sentenced to hang. The territory's district court could sit either as a federal court applying United States law or as a territorial court applying the territory's own laws, and it tried him in its federal capacity. The defence argued that a recent act of Congress provided that Indians committing murder in a territory 'shall be subject therefor to the laws of such territory' and be tried 'in the same courts and in the same manner' as other people, so he should have been tried as a territorial case. The prosecution maintained the federal proceedings were valid.