Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/212

 UUO I-EDEBAL EKPORXEP.. �was that the case was on the bordev-line, and that the juiy could not be expected to agree. This feeling, liowever, was gracUmlly dispelled by Gui- beau's course during the trial. Undoubtedly he showed great vanity and great ignorance, so far as the higher conditions of knowledge are concerned. But he sliowed abundantly that he acted in the tragic homicide perpetrated by him vvith a motive, which, however preposterous and villainous, was nevertheless as sane as are the motives of other criminals who talie human life to gratify Personal or social or political revenge, and with a full knowledge of the un- lawf ulness of his act. He proved on the trial that he was as sane as are the greater body of ruffians by whom life is taken ; and he proved also that if the defence of insanity was good in his case, there are few cases of atrocious crimes in which it could not be sustaiued. Had he been removed from the court- room, or "gagged," as was proposed, this condition would not have existed. Even if convicted, there would have been many who would have felt that the case was still one of doubt, and there would have been few who would have regarded the conviction and execution with entire approval. �The only points about Judge Cox's management of the trial which I ques- tion are the following: (1) The order in the court-room, so far as 1 can judge from the newspaper reports, might have been better preserved. It seems to me that marks of appi"oval or disapproval among mere visitors could have been suppressed ; and if this could not have been done, the court-room could have been cleared. This could have been done without the suspicion of invading the defendant's constitutional rights. (2) The trial might have been more com- pressed. To adjourn at 3 o'clock, or earlier if counsel desire it, is a great provocative to diffuseness ; and the vanity of a defendant like Guiteau is stim- nlated by theassignment of so long a period for display. �More serious criticisms may be made on the conduct of the prosecution. It is diilicult to understand why the case of the prosecution should have included proof of the difEerence between "stalwart" and " half-breed " republicans, and why a topic of this class, irrelevant certainly at that stage, should have been invoked by the prosecution. The ordinary course would have been to have proved tliekilling, and then rested. If the defendant wanted to show that he was in a state of insaiie political excitement about " stalwartisra " and "half- breedisio," tlien it was incumbent on him to show in what this excitement consisted. But this was for the defendant. For the prosecution to raise at the ontset the question, not only was irregular as a matter of procedure, but introduced into the case a political feature which could not afterwards be got rid of. and which was the cause of much^vaste of time and of many disreputable intexiudes. Nor can the speeches of Mr. Porter be regarded with unmixed approval. Undoubtedly his cross-examination was judicious, so far as it drew Guiteau f ully out. But his closing speech would have been far more effective bad he refused to reply to Guiteau's interruptions. Cut from the speech its argumentative parts, and there remains a large mass of vituperative retorts between prosecution and defendant — retorts in which both parties employed the most virulent terms which the English language contains. In a review of Twiss' life of Lord Eldon by Mr. Sergeant Talfourd, himself an eminent lawyer, it is said that Lord Eldon, then Sir John Scott, when con- ducting state prosecution, " maintaiiied a courtesy of demeanor which won tha ��� �