Jury of Peerers

Stepping down last January after four years as Governor of Georgia, frog-voiced, race-baiting Marvin Griffin left some mighty scuffy footprints on the sands of time. Griffin aides and allies, including his brother Cheney Griffin (TIME, April 14, 1958), have been indicted on 20 charges, among them embezzlement, theft, tax-record falsification, payroll padding, fraud, perjury and contempt. Georgia is out of pocket an estimated $10 million. Last week, the rare crime of embracery* was added. In Atlanta, Griffin-favored Tractor Dealer H. (for Herbert) Candler Jones, 45, was convicted for offering a $10,000 bribe to a grand-jury foreman.

Jones's difficulties began when he and State Parks Director J. W. Brinson Jr. were questioned about an apparent $4,650 overcharge on the state purchase of gardening machinery. Jones got to Jury Foreman Edward Westlake, 39, and proposed a $100,000 payment for hamstringing that and other investigations. Westlake refused, reported the offer to State Solicitor General Paul Webb. At Webb's urging, Westlake got in touch with Jones again, hinted at a change of heart. Meeting at an Atlanta tree nursery, the two agreed on a $10,000 price tag on the single charge against Jones.

Unknown to Jones, however, a cameraman filmed the meeting from a parked panel truck. And when Jones drove into a downtown parking lot to make his payoff, state investigators and newsmen peered from a nearby building.

Last week the tactless tractor dealer was sentenced to from one to three years in prison, and stood prepared for still more misery. He and Parks Director Brinson still face a six-count fraud indictment for their original overcharge to the state. But when they will come to trial is uncertain. Georgia's court dockets are getting more and more crowded, as the state wipes out the footprints left by the Marvin Griffin administration.

*Embracery, stemming from English common law, is the act of bribing or corruptly influencing the judgment or verdict of a judge or a jury.

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