Steve Adams, sometimes known as Stephen Adams, was a miner and member of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) in the early 1900s. Adams was named as an accomplice in several murders by Harry Orchard, who said that the murders were done at the orders of the WFM leadership. Adams was tried three times for murder, but was never convicted.
Adams played a role in events surrounding the murder trials of Western Federation of Miners (WFM) leaders Bill Haywood, Charles Moyer, and George Pettibone, all charged with conspiring to murder former Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg, allegedly in retaliation of the governor's role in the miner uprising in Coeur d'Alene. The investigations were led by famed Pinkerton agent James McParland. As a witness for the state who recanted, Adams is particularly notable for his comments about the methods used by agent McParland to turn defendants against each other.
The Haywood trial
McParland had WFM member Harry Orchard in custody, and had obtained an elaborate confession. However, McParland knew that he needed more than the confession of one man to convict Bill Haywood, who was being tried first among the trio of WFM leaders. Steve Adams was "a thirty-nine-year-old former Kansas City butcher and Cripple Creek miner with heavy, drooping eyelids and a booze-blotched complexion." Harry Orchard had described Adams as an accomplice in several crimes. As in the cases of Haywood, Moyer, and Pettibone, McParland relied upon a perjured warrant to cross state lines and grab Adams. The prisoner wasn't charged with any crime, but was held at the penitentiary in Idaho with Orchard. This was not according to McParland's plans:
If arrested, Adams was supposed to be kept in a separate cell away from Orchard as McParland explicitly spelled out to the warden. To prime a man for confessing, McParland required solitary confinement, a penetrating silence, the watchful presence of a stony guard, and as few contacts as possible. Adams was to be denied access to an attorney, knowledge of his wife and children, and no information on the charges against him.
Together in the cell, Orchard described his own confession to Adams, and urged Adams to also confess. In spite of the missed instruction about isolation, McParland reportedly later obtained such a confession from Adams.
Although Steve Adams wasn't allowed to know anything about his wife and children, they weren't far away:
His wife, Annie, and their small children had also been locked in the penitentiary shortly after his arrest for "their own protection," McParland had assured him, hinting that something dreadful might befall them.
Adams' family was brought to the prison "as a means to 'sweat' him."
Clarence Darrow intervenes
However, Haywood defense attorney Clarence Darrow passed the word that he would defend Adams, and the prisoner immediately recanted. This provoked the prosecution to try Adams in an old murder case for which there was only flimsy evidence. In fact the only significant evidence against Adams was his now-repudiated confession which appeared to have been coerced, as Harry Orchard's confession was coerced. The difference appeared to be that there was clear evidence of Orchard's guilt in the Steunenberg murder, and perhaps in a string of crimes, but little or no evidence linking the others.
Adams had been dining well and provided with fine cigars since signing his confession, as had Harry Orchard. The note announcing that Adams recanted that confession was passed secretly from his jail cell via his wife, Annie, during a visit. The note "delivered a lightning bolt" to the prosecution. It declared,
This is to certify that the statement that I signed was made up by James McParland, detective, and Harry Orchard, alias Tom Hogan. I signed it because I was threatened by Governor Gooding, saying I would be hanged if I did not corroborate Orchard's story against the officers of the federation union of miners. Stephen Adams. Witness: Annie Adams.
Because under Idaho law the testimony of an accomplice must be corroborated by other evidence, the prosecution was counting on Adams' testimony to back up Orchard's confession. Adams' renunciation of his confession greatly weakened the prosecution's case against Haywood, who was found not guilty of the Steunenberg assassination. Pettibone was later also found not guilty in a separate trial. Moyer was released.
Harry Orchard pled guilty of the murder of Frank Steunenberg and sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted. Orchard would spend the rest of his life in prison.