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LANE TO RESUME LYNCHING PROBE
Attorney-General May Return
To The Eastern Shore
Tomorrow
Attorney-General William P. Lane, Jr., expects to return to Salisbury before the end of the week to renew his investigation of the Williams lynching there on December 3, it was said today at his office here.
Mr. Lane, who interrupted his inquiry on the Eastern Shore to appear yesterday before the Court of Appeals in the hearing on a change of venue for Yuel Lee, alias Orphan Jones, was busy today in his Baltimore office clearing his desk for other matters. If this other work permits, it was said, the Attorney-General will probably go to Salisbury tomorrow.
Witnesses Questioned During a two-day stay in Salisbury earlier this week Mr. Lane conferred with State's Attorney Levin Claude Bailey, who has announced his intention of prosecuting the members of the mob which dragged Matthew Williams, a colored murderer, from the Peninsula Hospital and hanged and burned him. He also questioned members of the Salisbury and Wicomico county police who saw the mob in action but were unable to halt the lynching.
Several other persons who saw the mob and may be able to identify its leaders are to be interviewed by Mr. Lane on his return to the Shore, it was said.
Opposes Shore Trial For Lee The lynching now being investigated was pointed to in the arguments yesterday before the Court of Appeals as a strong reason that the trial of Lee, now set for Cambridge, in Dorchester county, should be removed from the Eastern Shore.
In his argument, Mr. Lane told the Court of Appeals that the record thus far in the Yuel Lee case did not indicate to him that the Circuit Court for Worcester County had abused its discretion in ordering the trial held in Cambridge, but he said that "some consideration should be given to the situation which will be presented if this case is sent back for trial in Dorchester county. Events which took place subsequent to the filing of the appeal have indicated the existence of a state of feeling in certain communities of that circuit similar to that which caused this court (the Court of Appeals) to reverse a judgment of the Circuit Court for Talbot County" in another murder case.
Court Confined To Record Several times during the argument before the Court of Appeals members of that court pointed out to the attorneys that it is confined to the record in the case in reaching its decision on the plea that the Circuit Court for Worcester county be overruled. The record, of course, contains no reference to mob outbreaks on the Eastern Shore such as the lynching in Salisbury.
After conferring for two and one-:half hours the Court of Appeals ad-jjourned yesterday without announcing a decision in the Yuel Lee case. (The court can be recalled at the order
of Chief Judge Carroll T. Bond, but the Chief Judge had not indicated today when he win issue the call.
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