Alibis

From the criminals' lexicon comes this saw: You can always buy an alibi. Whether bought or not, simple alibis twice in a month have overridden masses of condemning evidence gathered by the State of New York.

When New York City's public was convinced that Harry Stein and Samuel Greenberg were guilty of the much-publicized killing of Vivian Gordon (TIME, March 9 et seq.), a Bronx jury three weeks ago chose to believe alibis presented by the accused men's sisters rather than the testimony of one Schlitten, who said he had driven the car while Harry Stein throttled the girl.

Equally convinced was the State public that pasty-faced Jack ("Legs") Diamond, on trial at Troy, was guilty of torturing Farmer Grover Parks because of an applejack-whiskey war. Carefully Attorney General John James Bennett Jr., specially ordered by Governor Roosevelt to rid the Catskills of gangsters (TIME, May 11), had prepared evidence that Diamond himself strung the farmer up himself lit matches and held them under the farmer's wriggling feet, himself set fire to Parks's old-fashioned underdrawers. Three State witnesses placed Diamond near the scene of the crime around the time it happened. Five men, including a "physio-therapeutist"' and a jobless street-cleaning commissioner, presented the alibi: that Diamond was in Albany, many miles away. The jury voted "Not Guilty." Attorney General Bennett declared himself "stunned! . . . But I intend to continue the prosecution." Observers thought he would try to get perjury indictments for those who came forward with Diamond's alibi.

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