Cleveland daily leader. [volume] ([Cleveland, Ohio]) 1865-1873, 1865-12-21
THEBEDFORD MURDER
TRIAL OF DIR. JOHN M.#BGHES.
TheAEurdererOfM Parsons
Arguments of +. E. Knight and M. s.
Castle, sEsqrs. !

Court met at nine o'clock yesterday morn
ing. The interest taken in the case deep
ems as the trial proceeds and draws to a
close. The courtroom was crowded to its
utmost capacity yesterday, especially in the
afternoon, when people perched upon chairs,
ratings and windows, heads rising above
heads, to see what was to be seen and hear
what was to be heard.
R. E. Knight, Esq, associate counsel for
defendant reslmedhis argument. We ap
pend q report Of it: las tltN = AV
ARGUMENT OF NR. KNIGHT.
Gentlemen Of the jury: The business here
committed to your charge is one of the most
important that ever arises in the affairs of
men. The inquest which you, now hold is
one that involves the life Of the unfortunate
prisoner at the bar. And in a matter of
such great Importance it is of the utmost
importance to the faithful discharge of that
duty, that you look well to yourselves to see
that in making up your judgment you shall
be uninfuenced in any degree by prejudice
or passion, and that your deliberations shall
be entirely free from, and your conclusions
totally unaffected by. either passion or pref
udice. man of great uniformity of temper
and strong predispositions to vice, after hour
of drunken revelry and dissipation and in
an unfortunate moment when madness,
like a destroying angel, had usurped the
dominion Of his mind and subverted reason
from her seat, committed what the prosecu-
ton and the ~pOpulace see fit to characterize
"7H~.I@-Apa hence there has arisen a
powerful prejudice against the ~ereuduut.
/ ask you in behalf of justice, in the name
of liberty, which it is your duty to shield
and protect, that you shall remain IN
affected by it. Let its storms wall as
wildly IRRadly and fgEi9usly as they may
until it shall rock upon its foundations, still
no breath should enter here.I
1 pass now, gentlemen, to a consideration
Of the law as applicable to this case.
The defendant is charged with murder in
the first degree. To make that out the
State have to establish five things: First,
the killing second, that it was malicious
third, that it was purposely done fourth.
that it was done with deliberation; and
fifth, that it was done with reconciliation.
What now are we TO understand by these
several elements which constitute murder ?
1t is a rule of Interpretation, that we are to
give effect to each of the words of the
statute or of an instrument which we wish
to interpret.
Here various authorities were cited to
show the meaning of the several words
above named, and the general conclusion
deduced that the meaning of the first sec
tion of the Crimes Act containing the above
words, and under which the defendant is
charged, is that the killing must be done in
pursuance of an intention or design to kill,
which intention must have been formed be-
fore the party attempted to execute that
design, and that he must nave stopped to
uA-zsl.- = . =, L., - NL.N - .
that if the act was committed whilst the
defendant was in a fit of anger or of rage
induced by the deceased, he would not be
guilty Of the charge; that if the intention
to kill was formed whilst the defendant was
subject to any passion which disqualified
him for deliberation, and that intention was
executed whilst still under the influence of
that passion, he would not be guilty /;
that the intent to kill, although not essen
tial to constitute murder at the common law,
is by the first section of the Grimes Act made
an ingredient of that crime. [Fouts Us. State,
s Ohio State, p. 98 Rollins Us. State, s Ohio
State, p. I3l and Kahn Us. State, p. 306. !;
that deliberation and generalization, al
though not an essential element of murder
at common law, is by the same section made
an elementof that crime thatthe presump-
ton of law arising from proof Of killing
alone is that it was murder in the second
degree and not murder in the first degree /;
that the jury have in addition TO the finding
of a homicide, to find expressly and from the
proof, an additional element of deliberation
and generalization; that no extent of proof
of malice simply will warrant the finding of
de~liberatiOn and generalization, but that, in
addition to the proof of malice, there must
be proof of deliberation and generalization
as distinct facts and elements ofcrime that
drunkenness is competent in a charge of
murder in the first degree to be proved to
the jury for the purpose of showing
that the defendant did not at the
time of committing the act have sufficient
understanding to intend the act, and that
drunkenness is competent in all cases where
the intention is an element of the crime.
IPigman Us. State, IA Ohio, p. 500 Ibid, p.
435 Nichols Us. State, s o. S. Rep, p. 435.
Now, gentlemen, this much with regard
to the law for the present. / wish to call
your attention to a few facts which have
been given you in proof, and, first, l wish
to invite your attention to a startling fact
disclosed in this Investigation in regard to
the REGULARITY of the defendants troubles
and the melancholy results, and the troubles
of his ancestors and Their equally unfortunate
results. You cannot fail TO remark it as an
impressive coincidence, that the kind of
lTDuDit WHICH lCu hl6 dECtbbOT kulb RTdQu-
mether) to commit suicide, was the deep
grief that gathered and settled upon her
heart at the loss Of her husband. Thus she
became at once subject to fearful visits of
awful madness, and in a few months after
her loss, in one of Der fits of insanity,
she terminated her life. So when the de-
fendant realized the fact that she, whom he
most loved, had forsaken him, he, like his
unfortunate ancestor, became suddenly
wild, a maniac, and in its awful visitation,
he took the life of Tamzen Parsons and con-
templated taking his own. 1t is a singular
coincidence that the same character Of
trouble should befal him as befel his ances-
tor, and it is equally singular that it should
fall with such fearful and yet such singular
most effect upon each. Itcertainly indicates
French seamer Latin, Swedish frigate
clearly that some infirmity, defect, or pre-
disposition on the part of his ancestors, has
been transmitted to him as the hereditary
accumulation of the morbid predispositions
of his ancestors for sc ierations, exalted and
intensified in the organization of the defend
ant. And it is also a singular coincidence,
that the same character of trouble
which led his grandmother to commit
suicide, led him to contemplate the same
melancholy purpose. For you will not for
get what you were told by Mr.. Parsons
about the bottle of prussic acid which he
had prepared, and which he then had in
his vest pocket, and with which he then in
tended to commit suicide. Gentlemen,
there is nothing now better settled than
that p~redispositions to insanity are trans
missible from parent to offspring. Nay,
more, 1 cite you the authority of Wharton
and Stelle, Medical Jurisprudence, to the
fact that predispositions to lying, cheating,
theft, and ALI other moral
vices are as transmissible as govt, con-
sumption, deafness, blindness and almost
all other constitutional diseases. wharton
and STEELE, Medical Jurisprudence, section
l08 And if that be so, and it IS so, then
l can clearly understand how the unfor-
defendant comes to be possessed of
peculiarities of temper and mental ten
denotes and susceptibilities which charac-
terized his ancestors, and you then have
also the Key 70 the factthat the effect of a
great disappointment on him would be like
the same on his ancestor.
This doctrine of hereditary insanity
is Comparatively new. Net long ago in
sanity IN all Its. forms was simply
to be a visitation of God,
IN which we might look with wonder and
grief, but to which it was our duty to bow |
'ubmissiveIy. 1t was not thought that it
a condition of the mind, which might
be traced to o proper and adequate cause, |
either growing out of some hereditary defect
,r developed by the circumstances or habits
# its unfortunate subject. But now it has
.ome to be we'll understood that insanity is
attributable, like any disease of the body,
o causes which operate to its development.
Ind now in the light of recent investiga-