But the Terrys had not looked sufficiently at the possible consequence of their actions.  They had thus far gone unresisted.  As District Attorney Carey wrote to the Attorney-General: 

    “They were unable to appreciate that an officer should perform
    his official duty when that duty in any way requires that his
    efforts be directed against them.”

When, therefore, Justice Field directed the removal of Mrs. Terry from the court, and when her doughty defendant and champion, confident of being able to defeat the order, found himself vanquished in the encounter, disarmed, arrested, and finally imprisoned, his rage was boundless.  He had found a tribunal which cared nothing for his threats, and was able to overcome his violence.  A court that would put him in the Alameda jail for six months for resisting its order would enforce all its decrees with equal certainty.

From the time of the Terrys’ incarceration in the Alameda county jail their threats against Justice Field became a matter of such notoriety that the drift of discussion was not so much whether they would murder the Justice, as to when and under what circumstances they would be likely to do so.

There is little doubt that Terry made many threats for the express purpose of having them reach the knowledge of Judge Field at Washington, in the hope and belief that they would deter him from going to California.  He probably thought that the Judge would prefer to avoid a violent conflict, and that if his absence could be assured it might result in allowing the decree of the United States Circuit Court to remain a dead letter.

He told many people that Justice Field would not dare come out to the Pacific Coast.  He got the idea into his mind, or pretended to, that Justice Field had put him in jail in order to be able to leave for Washington before a meeting could be had with him.  Terry would of course have preferred Field’s absence and a successful execution of Sullivan’s judgment to his presence in the State and the enforcement of the federal decree.

When the announcement was made that Justice Field had left Washington for San Francisco, public and private discussions were actively engaged in, as to where he would be likely to encounter danger.  A special deputy was sent by the marshal to meet the overland train on which he was travelling, at Reno, in Nevada.  The methods of Mrs. Terry defied all calculations.  She was as likely to make her appearance, with her burly husband as an escort, at the State line, as she finally did at the breakfast table at Lathrop.  Justice Field reached his quarters in San Francisco on the 20th of June.  From that day until the 14th of August public discussion of what the Terrys would do continued.  Some of the newspapers seemed bent upon provoking a conflict, and inquired with devilish mischief when Terry was going to carry out his threatened purpose.