Was this Lincoln conspirator guilty? At this museum, you decide.

[RJNorton]

Here is a link to an article in today's Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle...story.html

[John Fazio]

Here is a link to an article in today's Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle...story.html

Roger:

Thanks for the reference.

The subject of Mary's guilt or innocence is covered in detail in Chapter 5 of Decapitating the Union. A consideration of as much inculpatory and exculpatory evidence as I could find led me to the conclusion that she was guilty of complicity in the assassination, but that she should not have been executed. Had Johnson followed the 5-4 recommendation of the Commissioners to spare her, she would not have been executed. Johnson's claim that he never saw the petition for clemency submitted by Judge Advocate Joseph Holt is unconvincing.

John

[SSlater]

Roger. Don't be so generous - "You decide". You will get 10001 answers to the same question. ( Before I forget, that was a especially nice article in the Post.) I say Mary was innocent of Murder. She didn't know about Harney's mission. She didn't know Booth's reaction to Harney's capture. She may have known more by Friday night, and she didn't report it. GUILTY!

[RJNorton]

Roger:

Thanks for the reference.

The subject of Mary's guilt or innocence is covered in detail in Chapter 5 of Decapitating the Union. A consideration of as much inculpatory and exculpatory evidence as I could find led me to the conclusion that she was guilty of complicity in the assassination, but that she should not have been executed. Had Johnson followed the 5-4 recommendation of the Commissioners to spare her, she would not have been executed. Johnson's claim that he never saw the petition for clemency submitted by Judge Advocate Joseph Holt is unconvincing.

John

John, I believe Laurie agrees with you that she should not have been executed, but I am going to quote from a previous post she made:

"...in teaching the Lincoln conspiracy to children (and many adults), I use an analogy to make the principles of "vicarious liability" and "laws of conspiracy" better to understand. First, many don't know what the word "conspiracy" even means. The minute I use the word "gang," however, they come alive. That (unfortunately) is something they can relate to in this day and age.

My analogy is the idea of a bank robbery where three members of that gang decide to rob a bank. One is the get-away driver and remains in the car while the other two enter the bank. In the course of the robbery, one of the guys shoots and kills a bank employee. Who is guilty of murder? The students are surprised to discover that, under the definition of vicarious liability, technically they all are.

I then change the scenario and have the driver outside change his mind, spot a cop on the corner, and report that a bank robbery is in progress. By the time the cop gets to the bank, however, the murder has already been committed. Will a jury find the driver guilty of murder? Probably not, because he tried to stop the bank robbers by going to an authority (one must be able to stop a conspiracy, not just drop out)."

My question would be...under the concept of vicarious liability, as Laurie explained it, why shouldn't she be executed? She had a window of opportunity to go to the authorities (as did Atzerodt) but did not do so.

[L Verge]

Here is a link to an article in today's Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle...story.html

A decent article. Minor errors in last part. Mary was not reinterred in Mount Olivet until 1869, and her original tombstone was not smashed by vandals, but rather by groundskeepers at the cemetery who knocked it over and kept running over it each time they mowed.

[John Fazio]

Roger:

Thanks for the reference.

The subject of Mary's guilt or innocence is covered in detail in Chapter 5 of Decapitating the Union. A consideration of as much inculpatory and exculpatory evidence as I could find led me to the conclusion that she was guilty of complicity in the assassination, but that she should not have been executed. Had Johnson followed the 5-4 recommendation of the Commissioners to spare her, she would not have been executed. Johnson's claim that he never saw the petition for clemency submitted by Judge Advocate Joseph Holt is unconvincing.

John

John, I believe Laurie agrees with you that she should not have been executed, but I am going to quote from a previous post she made:

"...in teaching the Lincoln conspiracy to children (and many adults), I use an analogy to make the principles of "vicarious liability" and "laws of conspiracy" better to understand. First, many don't know what the word "conspiracy" even means. The minute I use the word "gang," however, they come alive. That (unfortunately) is something they can relate to in this day and age.

My analogy is the idea of a bank robbery where three members of that gang decide to rob a bank. One is the get-away driver and remains in the car while the other two enter the bank. In the course of the robbery, one of the guys shoots and kills a bank employee. Who is guilty of murder? The students are surprised to discover that, under the definition of vicarious liability, technically they all are.

I then change the scenario and have the driver outside change his mind, spot a cop on the corner, and report that a bank robbery is in progress. By the time the cop gets to the bank, however, the murder has already been committed. Will a jury find the driver guilty of murder? Probably not, because he tried to stop the bank robbers by going to an authority (one must be able to stop a conspiracy, not just drop out)."

My question would be...under the concept of vicarious liability, as Laurie explained it, why shouldn't she be executed? She had a window of opportunity to go to the authorities (as did Atzerodt) but did not do so.

Roger:

If the Commissioners had applied the conspiracy law of the time strictly (which law was substantially the same as it is now), they would have sentenced all of the conspirators to death. But they didn't apply the law strictly. Rather, they took account of the proximity of the conspirators, in time and place, to the assassination of Lincoln and the attempted assassination of Seward. Thus, Arnold was spared because he had apparently abandoned the conspiracy two weeks earlier when he took a job in Old Point Comfort, Virginia, and was there on the night of the assassination. O'Laughlen was spared, despite the fact that he was in Washington on the 14th, because he was not identified as having any role in the events of the 14th, because his alibi for the night of the 13th held up and because his link to Arnold was stronger than his link to Booth. Dr. Mudd was spared (by one vote) because he was on his farm, some 30 miles from Washington, on the fateful night. And Spangler was spared because the evidence against him was very weak and because his role was, at most, peripheral. (He was, in fact, innocent.) Mary's role was similarly peripheral. She was not a murderer or an attempted murderer; she was a facilitator. That fact, together with her age, gender and poor health, should have been enough to save her, inasmuch as the Commissioners were applying the conspiracy law loosely, not strictly. And it was enough for five of the nine Commissioners. But their wishes were frustrated by the perfidy of Johnson, who had made up his mind not to be deterred from his course, not even by Adele Cutts Douglas, the only person to even reach him in the period immediately preceding Mary's execution.

John

[Gene C]

For me, Mary's guilt centers on the issue of whether she could have stopped the assassination by notifying the authorities in time to prevent Lincoln's murder.

Add to that, the political implications for a democrat from the south (Tennessee) to allow one of the conspirators (who many believed was guilty) to escape the gallows, just because she was a woman.

[L Verge]

John has pretty much given the same reasons why some were spared that we point out on tour at the Surratt House. The ones who received the death penalty were those who remained in close communication with Booth up to within hours before the assassination. Those who went to prison were those who dropped the project after the kidnap plot (that John doesn't believe in) failed. Mary Surratt's trip to the tavern that afternoon did her in.

[RJNorton]

Mary Surratt's trip to the tavern that afternoon did her in.

IMO Powell showing up at her boardinghouse on April 17th was also important to the Commissioners. He could have gone elsewhere, but it would appear he felt the one place in Washington where he might find refuge was the boardinghouse (which was already under great suspicion). I think Powell's arrival at her place helped lead the Commissioners to feel she was up to her eyeballs in the conspiracy.

[L Verge]

Mary Surratt's trip to the tavern that afternoon did her in.

IMO Powell showing up at her boardinghouse on April 17th was also important to the Commissioners. He could have gone elsewhere, but it would appear he felt the one place in Washington where he might find refuge was the boardinghouse (which was already under great suspicion). I think Powell's arrival at her place helped lead the Commissioners to feel she was up to her eyeballs in the conspiracy.

I agree, but I'm not sure that was strong enough evidence to hang her without evidence of her having contact with Booth very late in the game that day.

[RJNorton]

I agree, but I'm not sure that was strong enough evidence to hang her without evidence of her having contact with Booth very late in the game that day.

Agreed!

[Dennis Urban]

Despite Mary's Catholicism, the Fifth Commandment, and vicarious liability; Mary knew something was in the wind for the evening of April 14. In spite of it all, she had to know that something illegal was to take place. The evidence is clear on that point. At the very least she was guilty of knowledge of an illegal act being planned; although she may not have know what that act was to be. She had ample opportunity to thwart the plot and she chose not to do so. She was guilty but it was never established of what. She, of course, could not take the stand in her own defense. I believe she deserved prison time, maybe even life. Since it was never established just what she knew, she did not deserve the death penalty. I truly believe Johnson lied about not seeing the clemency petition. I can't imagine him skipping over a sheet or saying he was not told. Too much was at stake. He wanted to be clear of the "problem" and later lied to protect his position. I rest my case.

[KateH.]

Whether or not Johnson saw the plea for clemency, he still suspended the writ for Mary Surratt's new trial. It's interesting that he always stood by his statement of not seeing the plea but said very little, if nothing at all, about the writ even though the two were independent of each other.

[Gene C]

Ever wonder what the consequences would have been had Johnson commuted Mary Surrattt's sentence to life in Prison?

[L Verge]

Very good point, KateH. And Gene, I have my doubts as to whether or not Mary would have survived long in prison. Between her physical and emotional tolls, I think she would have lost the will to live.