100 years ago in Spokane: Judge tosses lewdness charges against ‘professed Bolshevist’ and his secretary arrested in hotel room

A Superior Court judge dismissed the “lewdness” conviction against “professed bolshevist” Harry M. Wicks and his secretary, Mrs. Erma Lee Lamb.

The couple had been arrested in a room at the Carlyle Hotel while Wicks was out on bond on a “disloyalty” charge.

Judge William Huneke ruled that the city’s lewdness ordinance was invalid, on the grounds of vagueness. He said it was was unclear if it could be applied to private, as opposed to public, lewdness.

Huneke went on to note that “what may be immoral today may not be immoral tomorrow.” The judge said that, if asked what is immoral, “I might answer that one way, you might answer it another way.” The language of the ordinance was “indefinite.”

Wicks was scheduled to appear the next day in court on the second charge, disloyalty. He was arrested after making what authorities considered an incendiary speech in Spokane in March.

From the court beat: Mrs. Bessie Langer, accused of shooting Henry Haley to death, asked for an immediate trial.

Her lawyer said that the shooting was justified on the grounds that it was necessary to save her own life. Her attorney said that they wanted an immediate trial because the material witnesses in the case were “temporary residents” of Spokane and will have departed the city if the trial was held in September.

Mrs. Langer was the landlady at the Thorslund Hotel. She said that Haley came after her with a club and threatened to kill her. She said Haley was drunk and violent and had beaten her before.

Prosecutors, however, theorized that she may have wanted to “get rid” of Haley before her husband returned home from the service.