394 



GUITEAU'S TRIAL. 



three days. It was devoted largely to portray- 

 ing and denouncing with scathing invective the 

 character of the accused as revealed by the 

 evidence, and demolishing the defense of in- 

 sanity. It described the prisoner as a monster 

 of iniquity, animated by selfish motives and 

 vengeful feelings, presuming at first on the pro- 

 tection of a political faction to be benefited by 

 his deed, whose moral standard he assumed to 

 be as low as his own, and resorting when this 

 dependence failed to a pretense of divine inspi- 

 ration and irresistible pressure. The address 

 was frequently interrupted by the most bitter 

 and violent interjections from the prisoner, 

 and occasionally by heated objections from the 

 counsel for the defense, who claimed that the 

 speaker went beyond the evidence. The only 

 check which the court found occasion to admin- 

 ister was to prevent a reference to expressions 

 of public opinion, intended to counteract the 

 prisoner's often reiterated assertion that the 

 American people sympathized with him, and de- 

 manded his acquittal. 



Immediately upon the close of Mr. Porter's 

 address, at 3.15 p. M., on January 25, 1882, 

 Judge Cox delivered his charge to the jury. 

 After speaking of the rights which were guar- 

 anteed to accused persons, he proceeded : 



Every accused person, lie said, was presumed to be 

 innocent until the accusation was proved. With what 

 difficulty and trouble the law had been administered 

 in the present case, the jurors had been daily wit- 

 nesses. It was, however, a consolation to think that 

 not one of those sacred guarantees of the Constitution 

 had been violated in the person of the accused. At. 

 last the long chapter of proof was ended, the task of 

 the advocate was done, and it now rested with the 

 jury to determine the issue between public justice 

 and the prisoner at the bar. No one could feel more 

 keenly than himself the great responsibility of his 

 duties, and he felt that he could only discharge them 

 by close adherence to the law, as laid down by its 

 highest authorities. Before proceeding further, he 

 wished to notice an incident which had taken place 

 pending the recent argument. The prisoner had fre- 

 quently taken occasion to proclaim that public opin- 

 ion, as evidenced by the press and correspondence, 

 was in his favor. Those declarations could not have 

 been prevented, except by the process of gagging the 

 prisoner. Any suggestion that the jury could be in- 

 fluenced by such lawless clattering of the prisoner 

 would have seemed to him absurd, and he should 

 have felt that he was insulting the intelligence of the 

 jury, if he had warned them not to regard it. Coun- 

 sel for the prosecution had felt it necessary, however, 

 in the final argument, to interpose a contradiction to 

 such statements, and an exception had been taken on 

 the part of the accused to the form in which that ef- 

 fort was made. For the sole purpose of purging the 

 record of any objectionable matter, he should simply 

 say that anything which had been said on either side 

 in _ reference to public excitement or to newspaper 

 opinion was not to be regarded by the jury. 



The indictment charged the defendant with having 

 murdered James A. Garfield, and it was the duty of 

 the court to explain the nature of the crime charged. 

 Murder was committed where a person of sound mem- 

 ory and discretion unlawfully killed a reasonable being 

 in the peace of the United States with malice afore- 

 thought. It had to be proved, first, that the death 

 was caused by the act of the accused, and, further, 

 that it was caused with malice aforethought. That 

 did not mean, however, that the Government had to 



prove any ill-will or hatred on the part of the accused 

 toward the deceased'. Wherever a homicide was shown 

 to have been committed without lawful authority and 

 with deliberate intent, it was sufficiently proved to 

 have been done with malice aforethought, and malice 

 was not disproved by showing that the accused had 

 no personal ill-will to the deceased, and that he killed 

 him from other motives as, for instance, robbery, or 

 through mistaking him for another^ or (as claimed in 

 this case) to produce a public benefit. If it could bo 

 shown that the killing occurred in a heat of passion 

 or under provocation, then it would appear that there 

 was no premeditated attempt, and therefore no malice 

 aforethought, and that would reduce the crime to 

 manslaughter. It was hardly necessary, however, to 

 say that there was nothing of that kind in the pres- 

 ent case. The jury would have to nay either that the 

 defendant was guilty of murder or that he was inno- 

 cent. In order to constitute the crime of murder, the 

 assassin must have a reasonably sane naind in tech- 

 nical terms, he must be "of sound mind, memory, 

 and discretion." An irresponsibly insane man could 

 not commit murder. If he was laboring under a dis- 

 ease of the mental faculties to such an extent that he 

 did not know what lie was doing, or did not know it 

 was wrong, then he was wanting in that sound mind, 

 memory, and discretion that was a part of the defini- 

 tion of murder. In the next place, every defendant 

 was presumed innocent until the accusation against 

 him was established by proof. In the next place, 

 notwithstanding this presumption of innocence, it 

 was equally true that a defendant was presumed to 

 be sane, and to have been so at the time the crime 

 was committed that is to say, that the Government 

 was not bound to show affirmatively, as a part of its 

 proofs, that the defendant was sane. As insanity 

 was the exception, and as the majority of men are 

 sane, the law presumed the latter condition of every 

 man, until some reason was shown to believe to the 

 contrary. The burden was, therefore, on the defend- 

 ant, who set up insanity as an excuse for crime, to 

 produce proofs in the first instance to show that that 

 presumption was mistaken, so far as it related to the 

 prisoner. Crime, therefore, involved three elements 

 the killing, malice, and a responsible mind in the 

 murderer. After all the evidence was before the jury, 

 if the jury, while bearing in mind both those pre- 

 sumptions that is, that the defendant is innocent 

 till he is proved guilty, and that he is sane till the 

 contrary appears still entertained what is culled a 

 reasonable doubt on any ground, or as to any of the 

 essential elements of the crime, then the defendant 

 was entitled to the benefit of that doubt and to an ac- 

 quittal. 



It was important to explain to the jury here in the 

 best way that the court could what is a reasonable 

 doubt. He could hardly venture to give an exact 

 definition of the term, for he did not know of any 

 successful attempt to do so. As to questions relating 

 to human affairs, a knowledge of which is derived 

 from testimony, it was impossible to have the same 

 kind of certainty that is created by scientific demon- 

 stration. The only certainty that the jury could have 

 was a moral certainty, depending on the confidence 

 which the jury had in the integrity of witnesses, and 

 in their capacity and opportunity to know the truth. 

 If, for example, facts not improbable in themselves 

 were attested by numerous witnesses, credible and 

 uncontradicted, and who had every opportunity to 

 know the truth, a reasonable or moral certainty would 

 be inspired by that testimony. In such a case doubt 

 would be unreasonable, or imaginary, or speculative. 

 It ought not to be a doubt as to whether the party 

 might not be innocent in the face of strong proofs of 

 his guilt ; but it must be a sincere doubt, whether he 

 had been proved guilty. Even where the testimony 

 was contradictory, and where so much more credit 

 should be given to one side than the other, the same 

 result might be produced. On the other hand, the 

 opposing proofs might be so balanced that the jury 



