The trial of charles guiteau

Under the conventional interpretation of M'Naghten, Guiteau was a dead man. Guiteau on the witness stand during his trial. The Trial. On cross-examination, prosecutor John K. Porter tried to suggest to jurors that what the defense claimed was evidence of insanity was instead only evidence of sin.

He forced Guiteau to concede that he thought the assassination would increase sales of his autobiography. He demanded to know whether Guiteau was familiar with the Biblical commandment, "Thou shalt not kill.

James Kienarn, a Chicago neurologist, testified that a man could be insane without suffering from delusions or hallucinations. He offered his expert opinion--accepting as true a long list of assertions about Guiteau and his state of mind--that the defendant was doubtless insane. Kiernan's credibility, however, was badly damaged in cross-examination when he guessed one out of every five adults was--or would become--insane. Seven additional medical experts for the defense followed Kiernan to the stand, but seemed--to most observers--to add little new support for the insanity claim.

Few experts had been as adamant about Guiteau's insanity as New York neurologist Dr. Edward C. He had written that it was as plain as day that "Guiteau is not only now insane, but that he was never anything else. On the stand, Spitzka told jurors that he had "no doubt" that Guiteau was both insane and "a moral monstrosity. He added, based on his interview with the prisoner, that Guiteau was a "morbid egotist" who misinterpreted and overly personalized the real events of life.

He thought the condition to be the result of "a congenital malformation of the brain. Conceding the point, Spitzka said sarcastically: "In the sense that I treat asses who ask me stupid questions, I am. Fordyce Barker testified that "there was no such disease in science as hereditary insanity.

Noble Young testified that Guiteau was "perfectly sane" and "as bright and intelligent a man as you will ever see in a summer's day. John Gray, superintendent of New York's Utica Asylum and editor of the American Journal of Insanity , took the stand as the prosecution's final--and star--witness.

Gray, based on two full days of interviews with Guiteau, testified that the defendant was seriously "depraved," but not insane. Insanity, he said, is a "disease" typically associated with cerebral lesions, in his opinion that shows itself in more than bad acts.

Guiteau displayed far too much rationality and planning to be truly insane, Gray concluded. Closing arguments began on January 12, Prosecutor Davidge emphasized the legal test for insanity, which he claimed Guiteau failed to meet.

Guiteau, Davidge argued, knew that it was wrong to shoot the President--and yet he did. He warned the jury not to reach a result that would be "tantamount to inviting every crack-brained, ill-balanced man, with or without a motive, to resort to the knife or to the pistol. He told jurors that if it were up to Christ, he would heal and not punish such an obviously disturbed man as his client.

Scoville, in a closing argument that lasted five days, suggested that Guiteau's writings could not be the product of a sane mind and that the defendant was owed the benefit of doubt. He scoffed at the prosecution's suggestion that only a cerebral lesion could prove a man insane: "Those experts hang a man and examine his brain afterward. At first, Judge Cox denied his request. Disappointed, Guiteau said that the judge had denied the jurors "an oration like Cicero's" that would have gone "thundering down the ages.

Guiteau looked skyward and swayed periodically during his address, which included the singing of "John Brown's Body" and featured comparison's between his own life as "a patriot" and other patriots such as George Washington and Ulysses S. He insisted that the shooting of Garfield was divinely inspired and that "the Deity allowed the doctors to finish my work gradually, because He wanted to prepare the people for the change.

In a candlelit courtroom, jury foreman John P. Hamlin announced the verdict: "Guilty as indicted, sir. Guiteau remained oddly silent. The Sentence and Aftermath. A sense of having been wronged, together with a warped idea of political duty, brought Charles Julius Guiteau to the Baltimore and Potomac Station in Washington on July 2, Arraignment of Guiteau Events Leading to the Trial In the weeks following Garfield's shooting, Guiteau seemed to enjoy his new found notoriety.

Guiteau on the witness stand during his trial The Trial The trial of Charles Guiteau opened on November 14, in a packed courtroom in Washington's old criminal court building. Guiteau, dressed in a black suit and white shirt, asked the proceedings be deliberate so not to offend "the Deity whose servant I was when I sought to remove the late President.

Many potential jurors claimed that their opinions as to Guiteau's guilt were fixed. As the prosecution was set to begin its case, Guiteau jumped up to announce that he was none too happy about his team of "blunderbuss lawyers" and that he planned to handle much of the defense himself. The prosecution focused its early efforts in the trial on detailing the events surrounding Garfield's assassination. Bliss, who performed the autopsy. Letters written by Garfield shortly before the assassination were introduced as exhibits, as were several of the vertebrae shattered by Guiteau's bullet.

The most important testimony came from Dr. Spectators cried and cringed as Bliss made his point, using Garfield's actual spine, that the shot fired by Guiteau directly caused the President's death, however long it took to do so. As Guiteau was driven away from the courtroom after Bliss's testimony, a horse pulled alongside his van and the horse's drunk rider--a farmer named Bill Jones--fired a pistol through the bars of the van. The bullet struck Guiteau's coat, but left the prisoner uninjured.

In his opening statement for the defense, George Scoville told jurors that as society has gained more knowledge of insanity it has come to recognize that persons so afflicted deserve sympathy and treatment, not punishment. This trend, he said, is part of becoming a civilized people: "It is a change all the while progressing to a better state of things, to higher intelligence, to better judgment. Guiteau, meanwhile, offered untimely interjections. When Scoville said Guiteau's "want of mental capacity is manifest" in his business dealings, the prisoner rose to his feet and insisted, "I had brains enough but I had theology on my mind.

Defense witnesses painted the picture of a strange and disturbed man. A physician summoned to Guiteau's home after he threatened his wife was an ask testified that he had told Guiteau's sister at the time that his brother was insane and should be committed. He concluded Guiteau had been captured by "an intense pseudo-religious feeling.

Other witnesses pointed to the strange behavior of Guiteau's father as evidence that the defendant's insanity might be a hereditary condition. They told of Luther Guiteau's attempts at faith healing and his belief that some men could live forever. Charles Guiteau took the stand on November Renee Faust Rohe 3L. To Top.

Charles Julius Guiteau is born in Freeport, Illinois. Charles Guiteau's mother, Jane Howe, dies. Charles is subsequently raised by his older sister Frances, "Franky".

His father, Luther, is very much against sending his son to college and wants his son to join the Oneida Community. Charles begins to suspect that his calling is to be a great newspaper editor. Charles believes that he has been chosen by God to spread the word of John Humphrey Noyes, the founder of the Oneida Community.

Charles applies to reenter the Oneida Community after his failure to get the funding he needed in order to start "The Daily Theocrat" newspaper. Charles runs away from the Oneida Community and begins writing letters for the return of the money he had consigned to the Community when he first entered. After spending the money the Oneida Community had given him, Charles moves to Chicago to live with his sister, Frances and his brother-in-law, George Scoville.

George Scoville offers Charles a job in his law office in Chicago. However, to Charles' consternation, he is unable to get a job as an editor and instead is left to sell subscriptions to the paper.

Charles previous worship of Noyes turns into bitterness. Wanting revenge against the Oneida community, Charles brings suit against the community for uncompensated work performed while he was a member of the community. The suit fails, so Charles resorts to blackmail. Eventually Charles gives up his blackmail attempts after Oneida's lawyers threatened to prosecute Charles for extortion and to use his letters against him.

Desperate for money again, Charles returns to his sister in Chicago and works as a law clerk. He passes the Illinois Bar and set up his own law practice. His practice consistsd mostly of bill collecting, although he frequently keeps the money for himself and informs the clients that the money was irretrievable.

Charles writes campaign speeches, attends public meetings, and pesters Greeley's friends and acquaintances for their endorsement of his efforst to obtain an appointment from Greeley as minister to Chile should Greeley obtain the presidency. Anne Bunn divorces Charles on the ground of adultery. Charles had purposely slept with a prostitute so that his wife might have the requisite legal grounds for a New York divorce. After failing to obtain funding for another newspaper venture, Charles moves back in with his sister, Frances.

While at the Scoville home, Charles while chopping wood and upon seeing his sister, raises the axe at her as if to strike her. Frightened, Frances runs for the local doctor to examine Charles.

The physician, Dr. Rice, concludes that Charles is insane and recommends he be placed in an asylum. Charles begins his unsuccessful career as a religious lecturer. He travels the country delivering sermons. When Garfield took office in early , Guiteau made his way to Washington to collect his reward: a plum patronage job that he was sure was his for the taking. He visited both the White House and the State Department on multiple occasions to plead his case for an overseas posting to Paris or Vienna.

Convinced that Garfield was going to destroy the Republican Party by scrapping the patronage system, Guiteau decided the only solution was to remove Garfield and elevate Vice President Chester A. Arthur—a Conkling acolyte—to the presidency. This would not only save the party, but would also result in Guiteau receiving the patronage job he believed was rightfully his. Surely a grateful President Arthur would reward Charles Guiteau.

President Garfield survived for eighty days after being shot, suffering horrendous medical care from doctors untrained in Listerian antiseptic methods. When Garfield finally died on September 19, the government prepared to try Guiteau for murder.

The doctors did that. I merely shot him. Glory hallelujah! I am going to the Lordy.