Sunbury American. [volume] (Sunbury, Pa.) 1848-1879, 1874-01-16
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Court Proceedings.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 8, 1874,

Davis when arrsigned yesterday, plead not
guilty to all three counts In the Indictment
against him. The District Attorney then asked
him how he would be tried. and upon his an
swering by God and my country" the attorney
said. "May God send you a safe deliverapcc."
The Judge then placed constable at each door
Of the cour, room 20 prevent the jury from leav-
ing. and then the Prothonotary called each name
as IL came out In order. In the whole thirty Sc
ven that were called only one man had conscien-
tious scrupes, and his were strong, as he
thought the civil aw conHcted with the moral.
The Commonwealth are allowed four challenges,
but they only took advantage of three In this
case while the defence challenged ten ont oftheir
allowance of twenty.
The usual form OF questions to all were, have
You formed or expressed an opinion as to- the
guilt or innocence Of the prisoner at the bar %
'Haye you conscientious scruples against capital
punishment which would prevent youf convict
ing In case the evidence authorized h7' Have
You had any conversation in regard to this case
&c. From the answers to the last question the
case does not seem to have created much excite
ment in the county, as none of the jurors outside
of the coal regions have talked about il, at least
not till they came to court, and only two or three
had Termed an opinion in regard to IL. The
names Of the lucky jurors, in the order they we're
sworn, are John A. Bucher, WIN. Forsman, Jos.
Irwin, Vim. Penal, Jos. vanDevender, Sam'l
Swenk. Hiram Bloom, Jos. Demnth, Jacob Reh-
rer, Jos. Eyster, Hugh Call, and Fred. Berken-
bine.
Davis is a very young looking man. one,
should suppose, oe no education and very little
intelligence and from his looks would be the
last person you would suppose would commit
murder. His counsel, Messrs. Zeigler, Purdy,
Brice and Kase. who were appointed by the
Court, bring to his aid long experimental great
ability, whi we have no doubt but that the
counsel on the part of the Commonwealth,
Messrs. Clement and Sober, will test the law
points in the case to their lowest depths, and in
the case of the jury, If intelligence is necessary
to acquit or convict, we know from the looks of
them that 1t will not be wanting.
General Clement opened the case on the part
of the Commonwealth. The most important
witness on the part of this side was Louisa
Schoch, who saw the shooting aud held the girls
(Fetta Ernst) head when she died. Fictta ex.
pired in about fifteen minutes after she was sho..
The doctor then testified as 10 the direction of the
shot, the extent of the wound. &c.
Mr. Kase opened the defence in very good
speech, and they then took their testimony. which
all has a tendency to show that Davis is sim
plet"n, and hat he has attacks of insanity pc
One witness said that while in Jail he
chased the turkeys around irving to catch them
to eat them raw, as he said. That he built a fire
against the stone wall in order TO burn hole in
to escape, &c. His father testified that he would
be sixteen years old the last of this month, and
that he always considered his son to have weak
mind.