GUITEAU'S TKIAL. 



393 



The cases that are referred to in support of the second 

 rule are somewhat more numerous than the others. 

 Some of them, however, turn on the statutory defini- 

 tions of the charge of murder. A great many of the 

 cases are mere dicta, and some of them involve utter 

 contradictions. Not one of them contains the least 

 show of argument. With us there is no statutory 

 definition of murder. We have the common-law defi- 

 nition of murder as occurring when a homicide is 

 committed by a person of sound memory, discretion, 

 etc. The opinions which support the last view are 

 decidedly entitled to most confidence. They are rea- 

 soned out from first principles, and their reasonings 

 have been unanswered, and are, in my judgment, un- 

 answerable. In the case of Stone, tried in this court 

 a few years ago. the instructions were as follows : " In 

 a capital case the defense of insanity^ is required to be 

 made out by most clear and convincing proof. In 

 this case the jury must judge of the evidence offered 

 to sustain the defense ; and ifj on consideration of all 

 the evidence in connection with the assumption that 

 what a man does is sanely done, the jury entertains a 

 reasonable doubt as to whether the prisoner commit- 

 ted tho homicide charged, or as to whether at the time 

 of the C3mmission he wa^ in a sane state of mind, they 

 must acquit him." 



I shall, however, adopt the suggestion which is 

 found in some of the later authorities that is, not to 

 instruct the jury to acquit if they feel a reasonable 

 doubt about any one fact in the issue ; but I shall in- 

 struct them as to the nature of the crime and as to all 

 the elements composing it, including that of responsi- 

 bility. I shall instruct them as to the presumption of 

 innocence and sanity, and shall tell them finally that, 

 on the whole evidence and on the consideration of 

 both these presumptions, if they have a reasonable 

 doubt of the guilt of the prisoner, the prisoner is en- 

 titled to an acquittal. 



The tenth and eleventh instructions asked for on the 

 part of the defense do not involve any serious ques- 

 tion. The eleventh instruction asks me to say that, 

 " if the jury believe from the evidence that the prose- 

 cution has willfully suppressed evidence of the men- 

 tal condition of the prisoner during two weeks follow- 

 ing the shooting or President Garfield which it was 

 in their power to have produced in the trial, the jury 

 have a right to take that fact into consideration as a 

 presumption that such evidence, if it had been pro- 

 duced, would have been unfavorable to the prosecu- 

 tion." 



Any instruction ought to be based on some evidence 

 in the case, and if I were to grant the instruction in 

 that form I would be assuming that there was some 

 evidence in the case tending to show a willful sup- 

 pression of evidence by the prosecution. I can not 

 so assume. It is always, however, open to either side 

 to argue that evidence which might have been pro- 

 duced and which has not been produced should be 

 regarded as injurious to the party refusing to produce 

 it. But I do not think the court ought to give a 

 formal instruction in the shape of either tho tenth or 

 eleventh prayer. I have already given my views on 

 the twelfth and remaining prayers. 



At the conclusion of Judge Cox's decision 

 the prisoner remarked, "I am satisfied with 

 the law as laid down by your Honor." 



The arguments before the jury were begun on 

 the 12th of January. Mr. Davidge spent two 

 days in summing up the evidence for the prose- 

 cution and discussing its bearing on the plea of 

 insanity. He endeavored to show that the deed 

 of the accused was deliberately planned and 

 systematically carried out, havingf or its motives 

 desire for revenge, love of notoriety, and hope 

 of escape from consequences through miscalcu- 

 lated political influence. His career was treated 

 as showing depravity and wickedness, unbridled 



passion, inordinate vanity, and unregulated am- 

 bition, and not insanity. Mr. Davidge was fol- 

 lowed by Mr. Reed, who occupied one session 

 of the court in summing up the evidence for the 

 defense. He took the ground that the accused 

 had been shown to be a mental wreck and an 

 irresponsible lunatic, whose conviction and 

 punishment for crime would be a disgrace to 

 American jurisprudence. 



On the first day of the arguments before the 

 jury the question was raised of allowing the 

 prisoner to close the case in his own behalf, as 

 he desired to do. His counsel seconded his 

 wish, but the District Attorney objected. The 

 matter was not settled at the time, but, after the 

 delivery of Mr. Reed's address, the proposed 

 speech of the prisoner was given to the press 

 and published on the 16th of January. It was 

 made up of a reiteration of his claims to patriot- 

 ism, piety, and divine inspiration, and contained 

 nothing new of a noteworthy character. He 

 claimed, as he had repeatedly done in the course 

 of the proceedings, that he had the sympathy of 

 a large and increasing class of good citizens, 

 that public opinion was growing in his favor, 

 and that posterity would justify his deed, and 

 condemn any action against him. 



Mr. Scoville occupied nearly five days in ad- 

 dressing the jury, beginning on the 16th and 

 concluding on the 20th. He went over the 

 ground covered by the evidence, examined the 

 law regarding legal responsibility, contended 

 that the prisoner had long been an insane man, 

 denounced the spirit and method of the prose- 

 cution, and attacked prominent politicians who 

 were, he claimed, responsible for the state of 

 affairs which wrought upon the disordered fac- 

 ulties of the accused and impelled him to the 

 deed of July 2d. He closed with an appeal to 

 the jury to save the country from the disgrace 

 of executing an insane man in obedience to 

 popular clamor, after an unfair trial, and for the 

 purpose of screening from detestation men who 

 were responsible for his deed. 



At the close of Mr. Scoville's address, the Dis- 

 trict Attorney withdrew all objection to the 

 prisoner speaking to the jury, as he did not 

 "intend that any error should get into the 

 record upon which there was any possibility 

 that a new trial should be allowed." This ex- 

 planation called forth an acrimonious protest 

 from the defense, and Judge Oox granted the 

 prisoner's request to address the jury, remark- 

 ing that some of his brethren of the bench " had 

 very serious doubts whether, in a capital case, 

 the prisoner could be denied the right to ad- 

 dress the jury." Accordingly, on the 21st of 

 January, Guiteau read the speech which had al- 

 ready been published, with a brief preface refer- 

 ring to a decision that had just been made by 

 the New York Court of Appeals, to the effect 

 that the proof of insanity, beyond a reasonable 

 doubt, rested with the prosecution. 



On Monday, the 23d of January, Mr. Por- 

 ter began the closing address in behalf of the 

 Government, and occupied the greater part of 



