The Los Angeles Common Council and Criminal Justice, 1852

Many of the same problems that concerned the Los Angeles Common [City] Council in its first two years continued into 1852, its third.  This included ongoing issues with public disturbances, the inadequacy of the city and county jail, the frequent turnover of city officials, and more.

One interesting development early in the year came at the 21 January meeting when council member Joseph Lancaster Brent presented a draft memorial, or resolution, that he wanted state senator Stephen C. Foster to take to Sacramento which would request the senate to take Los Angeles' existing boundaries, established in the Spanish era as four square leagues, or just under 18,000 acres, and expanding them.

On 4 April 1850, the first California legislature passed an act incorporating the city of Los Angeles and limited its jurisdiction to four square miles, but the common council claimed an area of authority of far more than this, embracing 111 square miles, in an ordinance passed in July 1851.  Meanwhile, the preceding April, the legislature amended its incorporation act to state that, while the city's rights were limited to what the 1850 statute mandated, there were some exceptions with respect to water, because, clearly, water sources needed for the city's use were outside the established boundaries.

Though not stated in the council records, the memorial drafted by Brent and presented to the board on 21 January 1852 requested an area of authority of nine square miles, more than double what the city currently embraced.  With Foster's sponsorship, the legislature did amend the incorporation act on 1 May so that the city's control resided throughout the area of the original limits under Spanish fiat, provided that a majority of electors within that area signed a petition presented to the County Court.  That court had to adhere to the statute governing the incorporation of cities in the state.  It was not, though, until 1855 that County Judge Kimball H. Dimmick ordered the city's boundaries set to the original pueblo standards and a new map drawn to reflect this.

In 1859, the legislature approved an act extending the city's boundaries to a maximum of 1500 yards on any side and that August the southern boundary was extended 400 yards southerly.  After that, there was no change until 1874 when the boundaries were enlarged by legislation to roughly 5 miles in every direction in the form of a rectangle that was longer north and south.

In the meantime, the federal act concerning California land grants issued under Spain and Mexico and passed on 3 March 1851, led the common council to request the city attorney, former council member Brent, to submit an application to the Board of Land Commissioners formed to hear claims for sixteen square leagues.  This area was large enough that Brent's application was written so that, should the sixteen square leagues, based on a radial line of two leagues from a cardinal point at the Old Plaza Church, extend to the Mission San Gabriel, the request would adjust the proposed limits in a westerly direction to make up for the affected amount of land!

On 26 October 1852, as the board held its only hearing in Los Angeles (the rest of the time it met in San Francisco), the application was submitted.  As was typical, a decision was not rendered until February 1856, when the board rejected the sixteen league claim, confirming the city's limits at the four square leagues created under Spain.  The city appealed to the federal district court, but this was rejected.

A detail of the 1858 Hancock survey of Los Angeles, from Maps and Surveys of the Pueblo Lands of Los Angeles by Neal Harlow,.

Consequently, Henry Hancock completed a survey in 1858 that reflected the land claims decision and a patent was finally issued by President Andrew Johnson in 1866.  However, the federal General Land Office determined the patent was invalid because the Hancock survey did not meet federal statutory standards for patents.  Another patent was then issued by President Grant in 1875.  In June 1876, the common council rejected the Grant patent, claiming the Johnson one was correct.  An 1878 lawsuit determined at the state supreme court confirmed that the 1866 patent was the valid one and it was recorded by the city clerk.  In subsequent decades, the City of Los Angeles grew dramatically, so that its area is the twelfth largest in the United States.

Another resolution soon followed the one about the city's area of authority and dealt with its lack of real power to deal with crime.  Brent and council member John O. Wheeler asked the council on 9 February to approve a resoltuion asking General Ethan A. Hitchcock, commander of the Army's Pacific Divsion, to trasnfer one or two companies of infancy "as near as possible to this City, for the purpose of helping, as occasion may arise, in the preservation of good order."  This was duly approved.

Notably, Brent was the recipient of an inadvertent assist from Army troops in April 1851 when he was the defense attorney for two Lugo brothers charged in the murder of two men and jailed. A gang of bandits arrived from northern California and hatched a scheme to extort money from the Lugo family by freeing the brothers from custody.

When the Lugos rejected the offer, the bandits threatened to abduct the brothers after a bail hearing.  Brent, according to his later accounting of the incident, tried to arrange a defense and was astonished when a squadron of troops happened to march into town just as the hearing was about to begin.  With the Army as support, the brothers were escorted to jail without incident.  If this incident is as Brent described, it might explain his request with Wheeler a year later.  More, by the way, on the Lugo case is to be presented on this blog very soon.

On 6 March, council secretary William G. Dryden informed the council that the approved memorial was sent to the general, but is not known if Hitchcock responded or if any troops were sent to Los Angeles.  A decade later, when the Civil War broke out, however, the federal presence in the Los Angeles area was a whole different matter as troops were stationed in several areas, notable Camp Drum near the harbor at Wilmington, due to the overwhelming Confederate sympathies manifested in the region.

Meanwhile, Marshall William Reader found himself at odds with the council, though not directly over matters of criminal justice.  Instead, the issue was in the cleaning of city street, which was to be done by prisoners held by the city in jail.  When Reader submitted a bill in May for $150 to cover three months of work, the council ordered it referred back to the Police Committee, composed of attorney Myron Norton and Antonio Franco Coronel, for reconsideration "in the light of the opinions advanced during debate and of the contract itself."

When Norton and Coronel reported back at the 15 May meeting, they stated "they they had ascertained that the Marshal had failed to clean the streets and is consequently not entited to receive" any money as claimed, although the pair then did state that "some of the work had been done."  Coronel proposed that Reader receive half the amount "to indemnify him for what work he did so, and it was so ordered."

On 3 June, board president Manuel Requena proposed that the contract paying Reader $50 a month for street cleaning be canceled because citizens were, by ordinance, required to clean in front of their houses, and the mayor, then John G. Nichols, was to enforce the ordinance.  When Reader submitted his latest claim, it was rejected as lacking (presumably, the work was not done or was poorly.)  Twelve days later, Reader resigned and George Bachelder was appointed in his stead by Nichols.  Bachelder was then elected to the position on 18 August with the porch of the home of Ygnacio del Valle being the polling place.

The need for a dedicated jail occupied the council for much of the year.  On 3 June, council member and future governor John G. Downey asked what the city's rights were respecting the existing jail shared with the county.  Myron Norton then stated that Mayor Nichols implored the council the consider "the urgent necessity of providing the City with a Jail."  Norton then proposed that Nicols "be authorized to secure and equip a room which shall serve as a Jail under the care of the Marshal."

On the 15th, Nichols submitted a report that "he had secured two rooms, at a rental of fifteen dollars per month each, for use as a Jail."  The council readily assented to this with the provision that it was "reserving itself the benefit of any reduction of the rental should occasion arise."  For a city constantly on the edge of financial want, these kinds of statements were essential.

Articles from the 7 August 1852 edition of the Los Angeles Star regarding two matters discussed by the town's Common Council.  The first was for a new jail, which the article notes the construction of which was let out to J.D, Hunter (he did not complete the project, however).  The other was about a new property tax of 25 cents for every $100 of property, 20% of which was to go to the Jail Fund.

Wanting something better than existing adobe buildings of generally poor quality for the purpose, the council, on 2 August, heard a motion to institute a property tax of 50 cents for every $100 of value and "twenty per centum of the amount thus collected shall be set aside to form a fund for the construction of a City Jail."  Six members were present and it was split with half voting for the suggested rate and the other wanting 25 cents per $100, rather than 50.  Council member Mathew Keller proposed a compromise of 37 1/2 cents and this was referred to the Finance Committee.

At a special meeting the following day, the committe suggested a vote for either the Keller proposal or the 25 cents per $100 suggestion and, with seven members present, the vote was 4-3 to go with the lower amount.  Clearly, council members were concerned with imposition of taxes and, probably, their prospects at the next election.

On 7 August, Mayor Nichols reported "that the City has no premises that could be used as a jail," evidently his previous location did not pan out, "and it was accordingly resolved that the rooms in Mr. John Temple's house, which appeared suitable for that purpose, be engaged." Temple, who was the second Anglo to settle in Los Angeles, owned a home south of the Plaza on Main Street, and was frequently involved in civic matters, including the loan of the money to pay for the first survey of Los Angeles, done by Lt. Edward O.C. Ord in 1849, and, in 1859, built a two-story brick building that was leased two years later to the city and county for a courthouse and municipal and county offices.

In conjunction with the county, the city hired J.D. Hunter, to build a 30'x15'  two-story, with the lower story to be of stone and the second, consisting of the jailer's [this was also the town's marshal] residence to be adobe.  The $7000 cost was to be split among the two entities and the structure was to be finished by the end of the year.  Unfortunately, the project was not completed and it was another two years before a jail was built, as noted in previous posts.

Finally, the question of dealing with public disturbances occupied some considerable time in the summer.  At the 12 August meeting, the minutes stated that

It having come to the knowledge of the Council that excesses are being committed at the 'Maromas' or tight rope performances, subversive of public morals, and, furthermore, several citizens having complained of the noise caused by said shows which penetrates the neighborhood for a great distance, and considering the danger of a cruel epidemic, threatening to invade the country, which would be fed by late hours and excesses, Council resolved that the Mayor be invited to abate these abuses, prohibiting the beating of drums before and during the performances and not allowing them to continue after eleven o'clock at night, or by resorting to other measures which his prudence may suggest.

A maroma traditionally has been a one-man performance practiced in rural Mexico that included acrobatics, including tricks with tight ropes, but there seems to have been a variation here in Los Angeles involving enthusiastic accompaniment by drumming and, perhaps more public display, creating, at least for sme, a nuisance.

Notably, though, this statement was signed, not just by council member Downey, but also by Coronel and Requena, suggesting that the concern was not necessarily ethnic.

At the 22 September meeting, the minutes contained a statement that "having been informed of the abuses which to the detriment of good order are being committed by Indians when arresting other Indians who are disorderly," the council asked Mayor Nichols to attend to the situation, as well as "to prevent that the Indians put under arrest by the Marshal" were not treated with abuse.

It is worth pointing out here that there was an Indian alcalde who had jurisdiction in arresting Indians caught committing crimes, but also that in early 1853, Nichols was tried by the District Court on a charge of "misconduct in office" for the way Indians were treated, though, the matter was dismissed because there was no provision in state law for the alleged misconduct.

This article from the 16 November 1852 issue of the Star concerns the recently completed session of the Board of Land Commissioners in Los Angeles, where it heard land grant claims, including that of the city of Los Angeles.

While, generally, city and county prisoners held at the jail were available, in lieu of fines, for hiring out as free (some would say, slave) labor to farmers and ranchers, Coronel, who was tasked to report on the state of the city's zanjas, or ditches supplying the town with water from the Los Angeles River, proposed at the 5 November meeting "that all city prisoners available next Monday, shall be put to work on the ditch by the Mayor, provided the punishment is not disproportioned to the offense committed and that it lasts as long as they work."

One more little tidbit closes out this entry.  At the 17 December meeting, the council received a petition from a new resident who desired to open a school for instruction in English.  It should be noted that public schools were a couple of years away from creation and any education was conducted by private tutors or, on occasion, a small school.  There were two mentioned in the minutes for this meeting, one conducted by the priest at the Old Plaza Church and another by council member Coronel.

The new petitioner was an immigrant from Arkansas and a native of North Carolina named Alveron S. Beard, who was mentioned in some detail in an earlier post concerning the writings of Horace Bell.  The council, at this meeting, voted to hire him at $35 per month for the express purpose of teaching poor children, many of whom were to be designated by the council.  Once this was decided upon, Coronel recommended the creation of a schools committee and Downey and del Valle were named to serve.

As for Beard, more about him in a later post concerning his checkered career as city marshal.