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TEXT OF THE B0ASBERG DECISION. New Orleans, La.. July 2. Here is the text of the decision handed down by the Supreme Court of Louisiana in quashing the indictment in the case or .Mark ISoasberg. who had been Illegally convicted of violation of the Locke law: "Hie question presented is simply whether the district attorney may recuse himself on any ground other than one of these prescribed by said act 35 or 1S77, herein alMive quoted. We do not think that lie can. The grounds or recusation prescribed for judges in the said act have been held to be limitative, and we think that on the same principle the similar grounds prescribed for district attorneys are in like manner limitative. "The recusation of the district attorney In this case not having been founded on any one of the grounds thus prescribed, was null and void. The district attorney was. therefore, not recused: and since he was not recused nor sick nor absent, the judge was without authority, under act 74 of 1S80. to appoint an attorney to act in his place, and, in consequence, the appointment of Mr. Adams was a nullity and the information tiled by him -was a nullity." Arter discussing that clause in the bill or rights which provides that "prosecutions shall be by indictment or information." the court said that this provision is Intended to secure the citizen against prosecution by private citizen, by governor, or judge or any authority other than a grand jury or a district attorney. "To the grand jury and to the district attorney, and not to popular clamor or to the executive. Is confided by the constitution the discretion of determining when the citizen shall Ik? brought before the court. That discretion the district attorney must. uiKm occasion, exercise and not divest himself of, as he would his coat. And the very time when the iNilicy of our" law, as embodied in the constitution and the .statutes, requires that lie should not shirk this resiKinsibility. is when there is popular clamor, or if judge or executive should ever undertake to dictate in matters of criminal prosecution." The court said that it was glad that it did not have to pass uixm the question of whether the system of lietting employed was violative of the Locke law.
