Robert Ruhl of the Medford Mail Tribune received the Pulitzer Prize for covering events as Medford orchardist and newspaperman Llewellyn Banks stirred political insurgency in Jackson County. Banks’ message of reform reverberated among citizens who resented established businessmen, politicians, and the press. Deeply in debt, Banks and Medford businessman Earl Fehl built a political power base during the November 1932 elections, relentlessly harassing long-time political figures. When Fehl won election as county commissioner and another Banks’ supporter won the sheriff’s post, political unrest reached mob-like proportions as Fehl’s supporters verbally assaulted other officeholders.

In January 1933, seeing the political situation as intolerable, Fehl’s opponents secured a recount of the votes gathered in the 1932 sheriff’s election. Threatened by this move, Banks, Fehl, and their supporters joined forces as the Good Government Congress. The following month, thieves stole an estimated 10,000 ballots from the Jackson County Courthouse vault to prevent the vote recount and authorities suspected Llewellyn Banks and his Good Government Congress. On March 16, 1933, police officer George Prescott went to the Banks home to serve an arrest warrant. Banks shot Prescott in broad daylight, who died instantly.

A jury deemed Banks guilty of murder and the judge guilty of ballot tampering. Later, Judge Fehl was deemed temporarily insane. As his wife Electra tended to the estate, Fehl called Oregon State Penitentiary home for nearly fours years. Soon after, the outlaw judge did time at the Oregon State Mental Hospital. Fehl was later paroled and lived until 1962 where he died at age 77. Judge Fehl dabbled in real estate and owned and wrote for the Pacific Record Herald. As a contractor, he partnered with Architect Frank Clark to design and build the Holly Theater, which remains a Medford icon to this day.