The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel That Scandalized the World

by Sarah Weinman

While the transcript of the proceeding is lost, I discovered the outcome of La Salle’s habeas hearing in a motion filed after the fact by Camden County prosecutor Mitchell Cohen: La Salle perjured himself on the stand by denying he had pleaded guilty to the abduction and kidnapping charges when, in fact, he made that plea in open court in April 1950. Future New Jersey governor and chief justice of the State Supreme Court Richard Hughes presided over the case as a county court judge. Hughes was so incensed by La Salle’s lies on the stand that he told the prisoner: “I hardly think you should be able to finish your first [prison] sentence, but in case you should, I am imposing another. You have attempted to subvert and obstruct the proper administration of law by an application for a writ [of habeas corpus] with absolutely no foundation.” Hughes ordered La Salle to serve an additional thirty days in the Mercer County Jail. Judge Hughes’s ire toward La Salle was compounded by the recent uptick of prisoners acting as their own jailhouse lawyers who showed no compunction about lying in their filings. “The courts always lend a willing ear where the deprivation of rights are concerned,” Hughes wrote, “but of late there has been a great abuse of this privilege by prisoners who lie when they file sworn statements. It must be broken up.”