Lincoln's Last Trial: The Murder Case That Propelled Him to the Presidency

[RJNorton]

Dan Abrams discusses his new book:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gskGA6XLrD4

[David Lockmiller]

Today, I was thumbing through the book and came across an unusual murder case trial (probably 1856) in which Lincoln served as the prosecutor. Heretofore, I thought that Stanton had been the very first attorney to use "temporary insanity" as a defense in a murder case at the trial of Daniel Sickles. It now appears that Lincoln was involved in an earlier case in which "temporary insanity" was also used "successfully" (but the outcome of the trial for the defendant was much different as to be explained) as a defense.

The facts of the case were not in dispute. In the summer of 1855, Isaac Wyant and Anson Rusk had fought over a disputed tract of land. Rusk had shot Wyant in his left arm, which had to be amputated. Several months later the distraught Wyant responded, shooting Rusk four times in broad daylight. It seemed it was cold-blooded murder.

Lincoln prosecuted the case; Leonard Swett defended his client. Swett called a series of witnesses to create a portrait of an unbalanced man sent over the edge of sanity by the amputation of his arm. Lincoln countered as best he could.

The jury set an important standard when it found Wyant "not guilty by reason of insanity" and "unsafe to be at large." Wyant was committed to the Illinois State Hospital for the Insane.

After the conclusion of the trial, William Herndon told Lincoln that he knew Wyant well, having defended him "from almost every charge in the calendar of crimes." Herndon described him as "a weak brother," easily led by others.

Considering that, Lincoln responded, "I acted on the theory he was 'possuming' insanity, and now I fear I have been too severe and that the poor fellow might be insane after all. If he cannot realize the wrong of his crime, then I was wrong in aiding to punish him."

[David Lockmiller]

I got the book from the San Francisco Public Library by going on a waiting list for the first copies (I think that they ordered 11.)

I tried reading from the beginning and I thought it tedious.

There is only one good section that I found in the book. This was at the end of the trial when the trial judge was considering instructions to the jury. It justifiably appeared to Lincoln that the judge with his prefatory words was going to exclude the testimony of Reverend Cartwright that the deceased had told him as he was dying that he forgave the Reverend's nephew on trial for murder.

If the testimony had been excluded, Lincoln's client would have been found guilty by the jury and executed. Lincoln interrupted the judge and argued vehemently that the hearsay testimony should not be excluded by arguing that all of the evidence regarding the case should be heard by the jury. In the end, the judge "saw the error of his ways" and permitted the testimony.

What would have been the result upon Lincoln's political run for the presidency if Lincoln had lost the case? It could have been devastating and most assuredly his client would have been executed.

[L Verge]

(08-14-2018 11:36 PM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  Today, I was thumbing through the book and came across an unusual murder case trial (probably 1856) in which Lincoln served as the prosecutor. Heretofore, I thought that Stanton had been the very first attorney to use "temporary insanity" as a defense in a murder case at the trial of Daniel Sickles. It now appears that Lincoln was involved in an earlier case in which "temporary insanity" was also used "successfully" (but the outcome of the trial for the defendant was much different as to be explained) as a defense.

The facts of the case were not in dispute. In the summer of 1855, Isaac Wyant and Anson Rusk had fought over a disputed tract of land. Rusk had shot Wyant in his left arm, which had to be amputated. Several months later the distraught Wyant responded, shooting Rusk four times in broad daylight. It seemed it was cold-blooded murder.

Lincoln prosecuted the case; Leonard Swett defended his client. Swett called a series of witnesses to create a portrait of an unbalanced man sent over the edge of sanity by the amputation of his arm. Lincoln countered as best he could.

The jury set an important standard when it found Wyant "not guilty by reason of insanity" and "unsafe to be at large." Wyant was committed to the Illinois State Hospital for the Insane.

After the conclusion of the trial, William Herndon told Lincoln that he knew Wyant well, having defended him "from almost every charge in the calendar of crimes." Herndon described him as "a weak brother," easily led by others.

Considering that, Lincoln responded, "I acted on the theory he was 'possuming' insanity, and now I fear I have been too severe and that the poor fellow might be insane after all. If he cannot realize the wrong of his crime, then I was wrong in aiding to punish him."

David - I read this post in its entirety and found it interesting and a learning experience. For many decades, I, too, have believed that the Sickles case was the first use of "temporary insanity." Thank you.

[David Lockmiller]

(08-15-2018 09:27 AM)L Verge Wrote:  David - For many decades, I, too, have believed that the Sickles case was the first use of "temporary insanity."

Laurie,

I became interested last night in the Sickles "temporary insanity" case and did a Google search on the subject and found an informative and well-written article published this year in the Washington Post. Since it was not-at-all Lincoln related, except for the fact that it provides some insight into the character of Lincoln's future Secretary of War, I decided not to include it in my post. I did some editing of the story and because of your post, I thought that you and others might be interested in the details of the Sickles "temporary insanity" trial. And, interestingly enough, it also took a favorable instruction to the jury ruling by the court for Stanton to succeed.

In the Stanton defense case, first-term New York Democratic congressman Daniel Edgar Sickles (and later Union general) murdered his wife's lover, Philip Barton Key II, the district attorney for Washington and the son of Francis Scott Key, who wrote the lyrics of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

The Sickleses — who married when she was 16 and he was 33 — seemed like many of the ambitious power couples that turn up in Washington. They were the parents of a 6-year-old daughter. They held receptions, dinners and balls at their home on what is now Jackson Place on the west side of Lafayette Square.

Sickles was anonymously informed of the sexual affair between his wife and Philip Barton Key II. And, in a written confession demanded by her husband after he learned of the affair, she admitted that the two had engaged in “intimacy of an improper kind.” More colorfully, she put it another way: “I did what is usual for a wicked woman to do.”

Sickles waited to take his revenge on Key. The opportunity presented itself two days later. Sickles spied the district attorney walking along Madison Place on Lafayette Square, signaling for Teresa. Sickles, with two single-barrel Derringers and a revolver — stormed out of his house toward Key on the other side of the park.

Key extended his hand, thinking the encounter would be friendly. He quickly found out otherwise. “You have dishonored my home and family,” Sickles roared. He began firing. After a third shot from the congressman, Key fell to the ground, dead. Sickles then walked to the house of a neighbor, Attorney General Jeremiah S. Black, and surrendered.

The case seemed straightforward. Sickles admitted shooting Key and expressed no remorse for killing the district attorney who had cuckolded him. “He has dishonored me, and we could not live together on the same planet,” Sickles told the New York Tribune in a jailhouse interview.

But Sickles had no intention of pleading guilty and passively accepting the judgment of the court. He assembled a top-flight defense team that included lawyers from New York and Edwin M. Stanton, a well-connected attorney in Washington.

In addition to presenting their client as a wronged man, attorneys argued that he was temporarily insane at the time of the shooting. Stanton told the court that the Teresa Sickles' affair with Key had put her on the road toward “the horrid filth that is common prostitution.” The courtroom erupted in applause as Stanton described Sickles’s motives as honorable — “the death of Key was a cheap sacrifice to save one mother from the horrible fate,” the attorney declared.

The two-pronged defense strategy — portraying Sickles both as briefly unhinged and acting with justification — proved effective. The presiding judge bought the argument about temporary insanity and instructed the jury to consider Sickles’s state of mind at the time of the shooting.

The jury deliberated for a little more than an hour before returning a not-guilty verdict. “[C]heer after cheer resounded in the Court room,” the Herald reported, “and it was taken up by the multitude outside and repeated.”

After the trial, reports surfaced that Daniel and Teresa Sickles had reconciled. The congressman confirmed their rapprochement in a letter to the New York Herald on July 19 in which he pleaded for the public to leave Teresa alone and direct its fury at him.

(Source: Washington Post, March 3, 2018, "‘Temporarily insane’: A congressman, a sensational killing and a new legal defense," by Robert Mitchell)

[Gene C]

Thanks David.
From what I've read, Dan Sickles was known as being a womanizer (according to Wikipedia so there's no political bias) He also had incidents of "intimacy of an improper kind". Several.
Also many people were as upset with him when they reconciled, as they were at her for her unfaithfulness. They didn't think he should have forgiven her and taken her back

From Wikipedia "Despite pronouncements of forgiveness by both of the Sickles and a brief reconciliation, which caused an outraged public reaction against him, Sickles was effectively estranged from his wife after the trial.... Teresa took ill and died of tuberculosis in 1867 at about the age of thirty-one."

[David Lockmiller]

(08-15-2018 09:06 AM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  I got the book from the San Francisco Public Library by going on a waiting list for the first copies (I think that they ordered 11.)

I tried reading from the beginning and I thought it tedious.

There is only one good section that I found in the book.

I now believe that I may have been premature in my negative assessment of this book. I had been busy lately doing other things. I tried yesterday to renew the book and found I could not because of a waiting list to read the book. Accordingly, yesterday, I was going through the index and the book itself at random and found three very interesting story lines.

I found Blackstone Commentaries references in the index with about five entries and followed the story line which ran from Lincoln's "necessary" defense of the attack by his client based on the facts (which was not a good factual basis according to Blackstone) to the winning jury strategy of the court's instruction to the jury admitting hearsay evidence regarding the deceased man's final words of forgiveness for the defendant.

Stenographer Hitt's discussions with an intelligent man from the South regarding the "unkown" Lincoln in the South were extensive. This was really good. He was a man who "had grown up with servants in the big house, [but] he was perhaps intentionally unclear about whether they were paid help or slaves." He worked as an accountant for Wells Fargo and he was in Illinois at the time of the trial to explore the financial consequences of a proposed merger with the Butterfield Overland Company.

At the time, Lincoln was a still a dark horse for the presidency. Questions discussed very intelligently were: Was Lincoln a candidate the South could accept if not embrace? How far would a "country lawyer" be willing to go to keep the Union? If it came to it, would he fight?

And, Hitt's 12 term career in the U. S. House of Representatives may have been the result of his very personal relationship with Lincoln many years earlier.

I have to return the book tomorrow, but I am again going to put my name on the waiting list in order to read the book at a later date.