Thus Turner, being Judge of
the Eighth District, was sent to the then comparative wilderness of
Trinity and Klamath; and the Tenth District was to have a new judge.
After this bill was passed I presented petitions from the citizens
of Yuba County, and of that part which now constitutes Nevada County,
praying for the impeachment of Turner, and his removal from office,
charging as grounds for it his incompetency from ignorance to
discharge its duties, his arbitrary and tyrannical conduct towards
the County Judge and members of the Marysville bar, the particulars
of which I have related, his contemptuous treatment of the writ of
_habeas corpus_, and his general immoral conduct.
A committee was thereupon appointed to which the petitions were
referred, with power to send for persons and papers. The testimony
taken by them fully established the charges preferred. Indeed, there
was no serious attempt made to refute them. The only evidence offered
in behalf of the Judge was that of a few persons who testified that
they had been treated by him with courtesy in some instances and that
good order had been maintained in court when they were present. There
is no doubt that the impeachment would have been ordered but for a
strong desire of the members to bring the session to a close, and
a report which had obtained credence, that after the passage of the
court bill, by which Turner was sent out of the eighth district, I was
content to let the question of impeachment be indefinitely postponed.
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