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When Counsel Seabury heard of this he angrily accused the opposition lawyers of "trickery and deceit," announced that Dr. Doyle was being protected "by tactics of the Tweed Ring." Meantime, Counsel Seabury learned of a certain telephone call which had been put through to Lake Placid a few hours prior to Justice Sherman's order, a call from the Manhattan apartment of Tammany's crafty Boss Curry. When news of this got out Manhattan newspapers pictured a worried Tammany with its back against a closed door from behind which came the querulous voice of Horse Doctor Doyle saying: "I don't want to go to jail." Max D. Steuer, one of Tammany's slickest and most willing legal henchman, quickly announced that it was he who had telephoned from the Curry apartment. He had, he said, telephoned to his wife at Loon Lake. But the New York Telephone Co. declared that calls-to Loon Lake never go through Lake Placid. Lawyer Steuer then hedged on his story.
Judge. Tammany's effort to protect its own now looked hopeless indeed. A last appeal for Dr. Doyle was made to Chief Judge Cardozo. For all practical purposes Judge Cardozo is as far from Tammany's reach as is Chief Justice Hughes from Scarface Al Capone's. Scholarly, liberal, a creative as well as an interpretative force upon the bench, he is always one of the first jurists mentioned when a vacancy occurs in the Supreme Court of the U. S. When the question of Horse Doctor Doyle's immunity came to him in the homely old study of his uptown Manhattan house he found it a question of the sort he loves, of logic and the law. Judge Cardozo could find no satisfactory previous ruling on such a case. But fearing that "grave prejudice to the cause of public justice might ensue" if Dr. Doyle jumped bail and disappeared, he decided that the appellant must go to jail until the whole Court of Appeals had been recalled from its vacation to judge the matter.
Judgment. Inquisitor Seabury awaited the judgment anxiously. If the high court upheld the decisions of the lower courts, he would be provided with a potent stick to prod from the city's political jungle a host of important facts hitherto lurking behind Immunity. If the decision were reversed, Reform would be rendered almost impotent. Each time it wanted to make a reluctant witness talk it would have to promise him a pardon from the Governor. Even then, the witness would not have to accept the pardon.
The fine distinction in the high court's decision, which Judge Cardozo wrote, rested on two points: 1) The law of New York allows immunity to be granted to an actual briber, so that the State may discover and punish the public servant bribed; 2) In the case of a person who has only conspired to bribe or otherwise break the law, the State of New York does not compel him to testify against himself; without specially enacted authority, no judge or legislative committee can relieve him of the risk of prosecution.
Thus Horse Doctor Doyle had been contumacious, since actual bribery was the subject of his case. But a special act of the Legislature would be necessary before Inquisitor Seabury could promise immunity to witnesses for testimony on other phases of his inquisition.