By Parker Anderson

Last week in this column appeared the story of the grisly murders of Charles Goddard and Frank Cox at a popular New River stage stop known as Goddard Station.  Two Mexicans, Hilariao Hidalgo and Francisco Renteria were tried, convicted and hanged in Prescott on July 31, 1903, even though no motive for the murder was ever concretely established.

Arizona’s beleaguered Mexican community lived in what might be compared to the conditions of bigotry and ostracism that African-Americans were enduring in the Deep South at that time.  Countless crimes were blamed on them, far too many to all be true.  In the late 19th century and early 20th century, many white murderers were getting their sentences commuted and reprieved in Arizona, while Hidalgo and Renteria were hanged within weeks of their sentence.

The attitudes of the era are probably best reflected in a long forgotten second criminal case to arise out the Goddard Station murders.  When Hidalgo and Renteria were on trial, their court-appointed attorney produced an alibi witness – another itinerant Mexican named Jacinto Cota.

Cota testified, under oath, that he had been drinking with Hidalgo and Renteria at one of Prescott’s saloons at the time Goddard and Cox were slain.  Therefore, the two men could not possibly have committed the monstrous crimes.  The jury didn’t buy the alibi and the two swung into eternity soon after.

That should have been the end of the story but Yavapai County Sheriff, Joe Roberts, outraged that anyone would try to save the murderers, swore out a warrant against Jacinto Cota, charging him with perjury or lying under oath.

The legal rationale for such a charge is this: If a defendant is found guilty of a crime by a jury, it is considered positive proof that contrary alibi witnesses the defendant used may have lied under oath or perjured themselves.  Cota was quickly arrested and lodged in the Yavapai County jail.

Surprisingly, Jacinto Cota’s court-appointed attorney fought hard for him, arguing that Cota’s infraction of the law, even if true, had not harmed society.  He succeeded in getting Cota’s original indictment quashed on a legal technicality after the trial had started.  The jury, already sworn, was discharged from the case while the authorities decided what to do next.

Looking east, the first Yavapai County Courthouse (built in 1878 and demolished in 1915) with the adjacent jail shown here as they appeared at the time of the trial for murderers Hilariao Hidalgo and Francisco Renteria and the perjury trial of Jacinto Cota (SHM Call Number: BU-G-0513pb).

Sheriff Roberts pressed the case and Cota was re-indicted almost immediately.  A new jury was sworn in and Jacinto Cota was tried and convicted of perjury in December of 1903.  He was sentenced to 4 years at the Yuma Territorial Prison.  It was an unusually harsh sentence considering the nature of the crime.

Would Cota have drawn such a stiff sentence if he had not been a Mexican?  Would he have even been indicted at all if he had been white?  Perjury, while illegal, was not prosecuted very often in those days and still isn’t.  But that is the way things were and attitudes that caused this remained the same well into the twentieth century.  Yes, it is likely that Hildalgo and Renteria were truly guilty of murder, thus making Cota guilty of perjury.  But even if this is so, Cota’s punishment did not fit the crime.

Jacinto Cota was released from Yuma Territorial Prison in 1906, three years into his sentence.  After that, he disappeared, never to be heard from again.  As he was close to the border, he probably crossed over and stayed there.  If he did lie under oath, he undoubtedly did so in a belief that he was helping his “brothers” against oppression.  And in retrospect, given the social atmosphere of the time, who could blame him for thinking that?

(The public is encouraged to submit articles for Days Past consideration.  Please contact Scott Anderson at Sharlot Hall Museum Archives at 445-3122 for information.  Previous Days Past articles may be read at sharlothallmuseum.org/library-archives/days past)

Published in Prescott Courier: September 16, 2012