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The Murder of Anna Wiese | ||
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EVENING TIMES REPUBLICAN |
MONDAY, APRIL 16, 1894 | |
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HEADLINES APRIL 16, 1894 ATTORNEYS' INNINGS Counsel in the Bennett Case Argue Law to the Court Mr. Carney, However, Finds Nothing That Requires Special Instructions Mr. Caswell Insists that no Motive is Shown - Boardman is Caustic
When court convened Saturday afternoon to hear the law arguments, Mr. Carney, for the state, said that during the noon hour he had consulted with Mr. Boardman and concluded there was nothing in the case that would require special argument on the law; that nothing but well established principles were involved; all questions involving circumstantial evidence had been thoroughly gone over and were well settled, and they would ask the court to present the usual instructions on that question. CASWELL ON MOTIVE Mr. Caswell, for the defense, spoke at some length, going over the questions of fact and applying the law as they understood it, and passed up a number of instructions to the court, which he asked to be given to the jury. On the question of motive he said: When the crime has been admitted to have been committed by the defendant, the law will infer a motive. But in this case, where one of the main questions was to discover the murderer, motive is a material question to aid in determining who had committed the crime, and some motive must be shown that is as high, as great, as the crime committed. No motive has been shown except that defendant did not desire her son to keep company of Anna Wiese because she was a girl of immoral character, and it was the duty of a good mother to so instruct her son; it was commendable and we shall ask the court to so instruct. It takes a strong motive to overcome the presumption of innocence. No one, unless he is insane, will do an act without a motive. It would be as reasonable to expect an effect without a cause. Motive is one of the facts in this case, and the jury should be instructed that if no motive is shown defendant should be acquitted. And they should be further instructed that the desire of this mother not to have her son to go with this girl because she was a hard character is not a motive. We will ask an instruction that this murder, if committed by the defendant, was premeditated. It is in evidence that she did not carry a knife; she did not habitually carry any weapon with which the murder was shown to have been committed, and if she did commit this crime it was with premeditation, and if she did that she was days meditating and preparing; and we ask a grouping of the circumstances showing premeditation. We claim there is no circumstance that indicates one person more than another - it might have been the men in the house as well as the defendant. If there is a single circumstance proved that is inconsistent with the guilt of defendant she must be acquitted; every circumstance must be consistent with the hypothesis of guilt. We have three samples of hair. If it is proven that the hair found in the hand is not the hair of Anna Wiese, then if another person can be found that has red hair it is not a circumstance. There is no such thing as identification by hair, and we ask that the jury be so instructed. We ask for instruction as to the comparative strength of these two persons, as shown by the evidence; point out closely the difference in strength and height, and ask the jury to consider whether the defendant could have committed this murder. BOARDMAN'S SARCASM Mr. Boardman's reply was very short. He said he did not consider this the time nor place to discuss the facts and evidence in this case; the court had appointed this time to hear counsel upon the law questions, and it is in bad taste to consume the precious time of the court in the discussion of such questions, particularly when it is so apparent that it is intended for influence in the back seats and not for the judicial mind of the court. It is said by the attorney that the state has had no abiding theory of motive in this case. He says that by some peculiar method it came to him yesterday that the state held this theory of motive, and today it comes to him they have adopted another. This comes in bad taste when it is remembered by many good citizens now present that the attorney for the defense confidently asserted upon the streets, before he was engaged as counsel for the defense, that every circumstance indicated that a woman had committed this terrible crime. It is said there has been no motive shown to commit the crime. The defendant may have known that under the subterfuge of going to Green Mountain the son had arranged a clandestine meeting that night upon the road, and she determined to go down there and intercept them and to have a talk with the young lady and give her a tongue lashing. From that meeting resulted a quarrel, and in the heat of passion a stroke from the club produced the screaming, and then and there arose the necessity and the motive to cut the throat and stop the screaming. I apprehend there will be no instructions from this court to the effect that the defendant could not have committed the crime - not in the face of the evidence that the girl had on a former occasion fainted from fright, and the disparity in size and in strength, if any there should be, is fully counterbalanced by the fierceness of the attack upon a timid and unattended girl, in a lonely spot on the highway at so late an hour of the night.
FRIDAY, APRIL 16, 1894 Continued with the Following Headlines: TALKING TO THE TWELVE Arguments to the Jury in the Bennett Murder Case in Progress H. E. J. Boardman Opens in Behalf of the State This Afternoon Strong and Logical Review of the Chain of Circumstantial Evidence Deportment of the Accused Unchanged - Sketch of Court and Counsel GOING OVER THE GROUND Arguments to the Jury Begin In the Bennett Murder Case, Mr. Boardman Opening For the State - Defendant's Bearing Today |
When court convened this afternoon there was a tremendous crowd on hand, all eager but many unable to secure seats or even standing room in the court room and it was soon packed almost to suffocation. There were probably more than the usual number of ladies in the vast throng of spectators, and the bar enclosed was more crowded than usual. Mrs. Bennett, the defendant, seems somewhat refreshed since Saturday and maintains the same serenity of feature, the same placid composure as during the introduction of testimony. She evinces a close and unvarying interest in the arguments, however, and sits with her head inclined on her right hand, her elbow upon the table at her side, and bends upon Mr. Boardman's steady, unfaltering gaze as he stands facing the jury and pleading against her life or liberty. It is probable that the arguments of counsel, during its various stages, will be the severest test to which this remarkable woman has yet been subjected, but she evidently has the nerve to endure it all. Mr. Boardman began in his usual quiet, cool and methodical manner, going over the ground covered by the evidence heretofore submitted inch by inch, and in minute detail, describing the murder and the tragic incidents of that fatal night with graphic force, and realistic word painting, gradually leading up from the frightful deed to its alleged author, proceeding with systematic care and plausible arrangement of circumstance and incident, noticeably warming to his work as he progressed. His words seemed weighted with logic and his argument in this case is expected to be one of the strongest he has ever made in a criminal trial. He will probably not conclude until some time tomorrow. COURT AND COUNSEL - Brief (Sketches of the Judge and Attorneys in the Bennett Murder Case) Arguments of counsel to the jury in the celebrated Bennett-Wiese murder case began at 11:30 this afternoon, Mr. Boardman opening for the state. As this is a trial of extraordinary interest, and as there are doubtless many readers who will be interested in learning something of the principal personages connected therewith, a brief sketch of the judge and attorneys is given herewith: D. R. Hindman, the presiding judge in this case, was born of Scotch parents at Otsego, N. Y., May 10, 1834. He read law at Utica and attended lectures in the Maynard law school, under Prof. Theodore Dwight, who died two years ago. Mr. Hindman served in the war of the rebellion of three years, going out as a private and returning as commander of Company H, Nineteenth Wisconsin volunteers. He came to Iowa in 1866 and located at Boone, where he has been in the practice of his profession ever since. He was appointed to fill the vacancy on the Eleventh district bench caused by the death of Judge Miracle nearly six years ago and was subsequently elected to the same position, and is now finishing his first regular term of four years. He is recognized as one of the ablest and cleanest jurist in the district, and is noted for his impartiality, a ready comprehension of matters involving intricate legal points or principles, staunch integrity and an unostentatious dignity that commands the respect of the entire bar of the district. He has presided over seven or eight important murder trials prior to this. H. E. J. Boardman is 65 years old. His birthplace was Danville, Vt. He was educated at Dartwood (N.H.) College, from which he graduated in 1850, and was subsequently professor of languages in the southern states for several years and was admitted to the practice of law in Tennessee. He came to Marshalltown in 1857, and has followed the legal profession ever since, with a success to which few men have attained. He is conceded to be one of the ablest of the state, being regarded especially as high authority in litigated cases involving abstract legal principles. He has amassed a very large property. Mr. Boardman was for a long time a trustee of Iowa College, at Grinnell, and one of the directors of the Iowa Central railway, president of the Farmers' National bank, which afterward became the City National bank, of which he was a director, and was president of the Marshalltown Hotel Company and the Mahaska and Hardin Coal Company. He is now president of the Iowa Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. J. L. Carney was born in Lawrence, Mass., and is forty-five years of age. He came to Marshalltown in 1873, having graduated from Iowa College two years previously, and from the law department of the State University in 1873. He has been in active practice here since that time and has built up both a lucrative and enviable law business. He was first in partnership with Henderson & Merriman and subsequently with Timothy Brown. Since 1888 he had been alone, and his practice has steadily increased from year to year. He has been county attorney four years and is on the last year of his second term. He was associated with Mr. Brown in the noted Rainsbarger cases a few years ago and has been employed in half a dozen other important criminal trials, the last of which was for the state in the case against John Nolan for the murder of William Hurto, in which Nolan was convicted of murder in the first degree. O. L. Binford is a native of Ohio, Salem being his birthplace. He is 41 years old, and has resided in Marshalltown since 1869. He began the practice of law in 1873, with nothing but ability and grit, has attained an enviable reputation in the legal profession and is one of the most substantial and influential citizens of the city. Ernest F. Binford, son of O. L. Binford, is 23 years of age and a young man of more than ordinary attainments and promise. He graduated from the law school at Ann Arbor, Mich., and became a partner of his father in the practice of law last July. He holds certificates of admission to three of the federal courts. Possessed of an inherent inclination for the legal profession, he has studied hard and is receiving some excellent training in this murder case, in which his work has been largely the preparation of the evidence for defense. Obed Caswell, who is virtually conducting the defense in the Bennett case, was born in Schuyler county, N. Y., in 1835. He attended the law department of the Michigan University and afterward law school in Albany, N. Y. In 1861, he came to Marshalltown, and a week afterward enlisted in the army. Later he went east, married and returned to Marshalltown in 1866, and from that time has been engaged in the practice of law, first as a partner of Judge Bradley and later of J. F. Meeker. He went to California three years ago, where he remained two years, returning here in 1893 and resuming the law business on his own account. He is a shrewd, sagacious attorney, and is bending the best energies of his being to clearing the defendant in this remarkable case.
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