Trial in Congress., May 29. 1868

Trial in Congress.

CONGRESSIONAL REPORT.

Session of the 28th of May, 1868; Mr. Zarco presiding:

The session commenced at half-past one in the afternoon, one hundred and twenty-nine representatives being present.

Mr. Zarco, president. Congress constitutes itself in grand jury.

Mr. Sanchez Ascona, secretary of the section of the grand jury, read the process verbal of the accusation made against the citizen Gomez Cuervo, governor of Jalisco, from which process we take the most important documents and the report with which it concludes. They are as follows:

The Accusation.

On the 2d day of February last, Antonio Gomez Cuervo, who acts as governor of the State of Jalisco, sanctioned the annexed decree, which, under the number 61, was issued by the legislature of that State, and which has the character of a special law of retroactive effect, the application of which is intrusted to the executive power, and in which decree are violated the guarantees respecting the life and liberty of individuals, provided by article 20 of the constitution of the republic.

On the 23d of the same month of February, at midnight, five individuals were apprehended, and were executed, by order of Señor Gomez Cuervo, at daybreak on the following day, without any previous trial whatever.

The victims in vain sought the protection of the federal courts for the assurance of their individual guarantees, a protection which was amply decreed in their favor, ordering the suspension of the execution for Señor Gomez Cuervo, infringing articles 101 and 102 of the constitution, and the organic law of the 30th of November, 1861, disregarding what had been opportunely decreed by the judge of the district, ordered that the five individuals should be executed in the principal square of Guadalajara.

Señor Gomez Cuervo has gone still further: he has manifested to the federal court that he will not obey such orders as are communicated to him with the object of hindering the executions he may decree.

The superior tribunal of the circuit has reported and transmitted all the antecedents of this busiuess to the ministry and to the supreme court of justice of the nation.

For all the foregoing violations of the constitution we, the undersigned, accuse Señor Gomez Cuervo before the grand jury of the nation.