CRIME: Keyes to San Quentin

In the five years he was District Attorney of Los Angeles Asa Keyes (pronounced Kize; no kin to New Hampshire's Senator Keyes in col. 1) sent 4,030 men and women to California prisons for every variety of crime. Last week he joined this criminal company himself, entered San Quentin Prison as a convicted bribe-taker, a betrayer of public trust.

"What is life? We have an hour of consciousness and then we are gone," he grumbled as he entered the prison gates. Curtly, like any common thief, he was ordered to bathe, have his hair clipped short, be photographed, fingerprinted. As No. 48,218, he was put in a single cell in the "Old Men's Ward" by Warden James Holohan.

Warden Holohan was slightly disturbed by Keyes's presence among his former quarries in the courts. Fear was felt some of them might try to "get" him. Warden Holohan looked about for a special job that would be safe for No. 48,218.

Among those at San Quentin who had felt the full impact of the Keyes prosecution were bad-tempered Norman Selby ("Kid McCoy"), in for the murder of Mrs. Theresa Mors; Leo Pat Kelle, convicted of killing Mrs. Myrtle Mellus; Herbert Wilson, train robber; Clara Phillips, who slew Alberta Meadows viciously with a hammer.

Keyes's downfall, in 1927, came as an aftermath of the collapse of the $40,000,000 Julian Petroleum Corp. stock swindle. He was called upon to prosecute the stock cheats under California's corporation laws. He asked dismissal of the charges. This motion Superior Court Judge William Doran denied. The trial dragged to an acquittal. Judge Doran flayed District Attorney Keyes for his "lackadaisical methods of prosecution." Five months later Keyes was indicted for conspiracy to receive a bribe from the men he had so feebly prosecuted in the Julian case. Tried and convicted, he was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment.