eral knowledge around the campus) to school authorities who called in police. Meyer warned them not to mention the wallet-that would mean a murder charge-but to plead self-defense against "improper advance."

Wide conflicts in their testimony. Had Rios propositioned Farrell, or vice versa? Several students testified to hearing the bragging, both before and after. One witness saw the comings and goings in the alley from a window, but hadn't been in view of the beating. There was no corroborating evidence whatever for Farrell's charge that his victim was homosexual.

Murder is defined by the law under which they were tried as the killing of a human being. . . (2) when the offender is engaged in the perpetration of... simple robbery, even though he has no intent to kill."

The robbery was openly plotted, brutally performed and bragged about afterward. Rios was proven to have died as a direct result of the vicious beating. Defense attorneys claimed Rios died because he was a "medical freak" with an "eggshell cranium," but Judge Bernard Cocke rightly disallowed such a statement. After all, Fernando Rios had kept his cranium intact, thick or thin, for several years before he fell victim to Farrell's murderous scheme and assault.

A galaxy of prominent character witnesses spoke for the defendants. No one spoke in behalf of the dead man's besmirched character. The plea of the defense was amazing. Unable to deny the sequence of events, defense atty. Edw. Baldwin treated the matter as a harmless lark that accidentally went sour. Before hearing of Rios' death, he said, the boys, now contrite, had put the

one

stolen money in a church poor box. How touching! There had been no murder at all, Baldwin argued. The "three boys are guilty of nothing worse than bad conduct." The theft, he said, was a mere afterthought, understandably prompted by motives of getting revenge on Rios for having made an improper advance -if Farrell hadn't gone back for the wallet, "there would have been no crime under the law committed at all."

Fernando Rios would have been dead just the same, and as a direct result of their having assaulted him exactly as they had conspired to do. Was Farrell's sensibility so offended because Rios allegedly "made an advance"? What else had Farrell sought him out for? There was only Farrell's word (uncorroborated by his companions and invalidated by his own repeated perjury) that Rios made an advance at all, or showed any signs of homosexual inclination. The U. S. Court of Appeals, reversing the Guarro case in 1956, made clear that a person who has invited a sexual "proposition" cannot then claim to be offended by it. The story about the church poor box directly contradicted testimony about burning and spending the money. Rios having been a Mexican national, Defense appealed to jury prejudice by depicting the sinister influence of a foreign government in the trial. (The Mexican government retained an attorney.) Farrell and Drennan were of choice, white, 100% stock, good boys all around.

Prosecution asked for the death sentence. They had the advantage of position, wealth, and education. "The community is entitled to protection against criminals, whether they be college boys or riff-raff off the streets." The victim "had a right to live, not to be murdered, not to