384 



GUITEAU'S TRIAL. 



on the 2d of December, and was followed by 

 evidence intended to show the political situa- 

 tion prior to July 2d, which was assumed to 

 have been an exciting cause upon the mind of 

 the prisoner to impel him to his act of that 

 date. 



The fourth week of the trial opened on the 

 5th of December, with the introduction of ex- 

 pert testimony on the part of the defense to 

 prove insanity. The following hypothetical 

 question, based on the facts which the defense 

 assumed as having been developed by the pre- 

 vious testimony, was propounded to the wit- 

 nesses by Mr. Scoville : 



Assuming it to be a fact that there was a strong 

 hereditary taint of insanity in the blood of the pris- 

 oner at the bar ; also ? that at about the age of thirty- 

 five years his own mmd was so much deranged that 

 he was a fit subject to be sent to an insane asylum ; 

 also, that at different times after that date during the 

 next succeeding five years he manifested such decided 

 symptoms of insanity, without simulation, that many 

 different persons conversing with him, and observing 

 his conduct, believed him to be insane ; also, that in 

 or about the month of June, 1881. at or about the ex- 

 piration of said term of five years, he became demented 

 by the idea that he was inspired of God to remove by 

 death the President of the United States ; also, that 

 he acted on what he believed to be such inspiration, 

 and on what he believed to be in accordance with the 

 divine will in the preparation for and in the accom- 

 plishment of such a purpose ; also, that he committed 

 the act of shooting the President under what he be- 

 lieved to be a divine command, which he was not at 

 liberty to disobey, and which belief made out a con- 

 viction which controlled his conscience and over- 

 powered his will as to that act, so that he could not 

 resist the mental pressure upon him ; also, that im- 

 mediately after the shooting he appeared calm and as 

 if relieved by the performance of a great duty : also, 

 that there was no other adequate motive for the act 

 than the conviction that he was executing the divine 

 will for the good of his country assuming all of these 

 propositions to be true, state whether, in your opinion, 

 the prisoner was sane or insane at the time of shoot- 

 ing President Garfield ? 



The first of the expert witnesses, Dr. James 

 G. Kiernan, of Chicago, replied to this ques- 

 tion, that, assuming these propositions to be 

 true, he had no doubt of the prisoner's insanity. 

 On cross-examination the witness expressed a 

 belief in the existence of moral insanity, and 

 stated the opinion that about one person in five 

 in the community was more or less insane. 

 Dr. Charles H. Nichols, of the Bloomingdale 

 Asylum, New York, and Dr. Charles F. Fol- 

 som, of Boston, also testified that, assuming 

 the statements in the hypothetical question to 

 be true, the person described would, in their 

 opinion, be insane. Dr. Samuel Worcester, of 

 Salem, Massachusetts, insisting on an explana- 

 tion of the question, was set aside as a witness 

 for the defense. Dr. W. W. Golding, of Wash- 

 ington; Dr. James H. McBride, of Milwaukee; 

 and Dr. Walter Channing, of Brookline, Mas- 

 sachusetts, also testified that, assuming the 

 propositions of the question to be all true, 

 they should regard the prisoner as insane. Dr. 

 Theodore W. Fisher, of Boston, replied, "I 

 should dislike very much to be confined to 

 that statement of facts, but if I am obliged to 



answer that question I should say he was in- 

 sane." This concluded the medical testimony 

 for the defense, and was followed by the read- 

 ing of passages from a book written by the 

 prisoner and entitled "Truth," and by the evi- 

 dence of two or three public men who had 

 been acquainted with the political doings of 

 the accused. The prisoner himself petulantly 

 criticised the theory and conduct of his coun- 

 sel, and desired to have President Arthur, Gen- 

 eral Grant, ex-Senator Conkling, and other 

 prominent public men summoned, as well as 

 the editors of several leading newspapers. At 

 the opening of the court on December 7th, he 

 made the following statement : 



May it please your Honor, the American people do 

 not desire that this case shall be tried again, and I do 

 not desire it. I say, with the utmost respect to this 

 court and jury and my counsel, Mr. Scoville, that I 

 am not satisfied with the political situation as devel- 

 oped in this case. That is the gist of the alleged of- 

 fense. The President of the United States would 

 never have been shot if it had not been for the polit- 

 ical situation as it existed last May and June, and I 

 say I have a right, as a matter of law, appearing as 

 my own counsel, to ask your Honor that General 

 Grant, Senators Conkling and Platt, and President 

 Arthur and those kind of men, who were so down 

 upon Garfield that they would not speak to him on the 

 street, and would not go to the White House I have 

 a right to show that I have a right to show my per- 

 sonal relations to those gentlemen; that I was on 

 friendly terms with them ; that I was cordially re- 

 ceived, well dressed, and well fed at the Fifth Avenue 

 Hotel by the National Committee. I want to show 

 my supposed personal relations to those men. I do 

 not want to take exception to your Honor's ruling, 

 but I shall be obliged to do so. I have no doubt that 

 the court in bane will give me a new trial. 



The same day the rebutting testimony of the 

 prosecution was begun, with the understanding 

 that Dr. Spitzka, of New York, who had been 

 summoned for the defense as an expert and had 

 not yet appeared, might be examined at a later 

 stage of the proceedings. Three days were 

 occupied with evidence in rebuttal of that 

 which was intended to show insanity in the 

 Guiteau family, and in support of the theory 

 that the prisoner was simply depraved and 

 wicked, having been addicted to cheating, hy- 

 pocrisy, and vice, and possessed with an in- 

 ordinate vanity and desire for notoriety. 



On the opening of the fifth week, December 

 12th, Dr. Spitzka appeared and was examined 

 for the defense. He testified that he had made 

 a personal examination of the prisoner, and be- 

 lieved him to be insane, " a moral imbecile, or 

 rather a moral monstrosity." He was sub- 

 jected to a severe cross-examination, intended 

 to discredit his authority as an expert. On the 

 13th the prosecution began the introduction of 

 expert testimony in rebuttal of that of the de- 

 fense. The first witness of this class was Dr. 

 Fordyce Barker, of New York, who testified 

 that there was no such thing as hereditary 

 insanity, though there might be a transmit- 

 ted liability to become insane, and that in his 

 opinion what was termed moral insanity was 

 nothing but wickedness. The general purport 

 of his testimony was that in Guiteau's case 



