From the Richmond Dispatch, 7/23/1864, p.1, c 4
Montelle’s Case. – In Judge Lyons’s Court, yesterday, counsel for Granville Montelle, who stands charged with shooting, with intent to kill, a free negro named Susan Hill, made a motion for change of venue, basing the ground of their application upon the fact that the public mind had been so much poisoned against their client by the abusive manner in which the press of Richmond had alluded to him, as to make it doubtful whether a jury could be found here who would give him a fair trial.
Judge Lyons and Commonwealth’s Attorney Tazewell took a different view of the matter; they did not consider the news papers of Richmond deficient in courtesy and justice, and even if there were, it was no reason why an intelligent juryman, who had read them, should be incompetent to give a criminal a fair and impartial trial. The motion for a change of venue was therefore overruled. In order to procure the attendance of Joseph Parker, and important witness for the defense, the trial was then laid over till this morning.