If the court insists on the trial proceeding, he invariably recovers.

Of course, there are many legitimate reasons for adjourning cases which the prosecution is powerless to combat.
The most effective method invoked to secure delay, and one which it is practically useless for the district attorney to oppose, is an application "to take testimony" upon commission in some distant place.
Here again it must be borne in mind that such applications are often legitimate and proper and should be granted in simple justice to the defendant.

Although this right to take the testimony of absent witnesses is confined in New York State to the defendant and does not extend to the prosecution, and is undoubtedly often the subject of much abuse, it not infrequently is the cause of saving an innocent man.
An example of this was the case of William H.Ellis, recently brought into the public eye through his connection with the treaty between the United States Government and King Menelik of Abyssinia.

Ellis was accused in 1901 by a young woman of apparently excellent antecedents and character of a serious crime.

Prior to his indictment a colored man employed in his office (the alleged scene of the crime) disappeared.
When the case was moved for trial, Ellis, through his attorneys, moved for a commission to take the testimony of this absent, but clearly material, witness in one of the remote States of Mexico--a proceeding which would require a journey of some two weeks on muleback, beyond the railway terminus.