The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1877-07-12
CIRCUMsTANTlAL EVIDENCE.
Some Noted Instances of the Weakness of
this Glass of Proof-An Innocent Man
Hanged in illinois,

Some Noted Instances of the Weakness of
this Glass of Proof-An Innocent Man
Hanged in illinois,
TFrom the Springfield (NIass.l Republican,
Circumstantial evidence, which still
keeps its place 50 powerfully in the adj
ministration Of law and penalty, is so
repeatedly discredited that it seems a
wonder that it can ever be accepted as
conclusive IN cases of life or death. It's
recorded failures are so many and so re-
markable that they naturally assume
prominent place in the arguments urged
against capital punishment for death is
fact that no proof of innocence can do
away with, and none who has been
hanged by a conspiracy of circumstances
can hardly reap the benefit of a formal
atonement in the court records. Even
those who believe in hanging should be
ready, after these years of discussion of
social science, to have the law SO modi
fed that no person should suffer death
on the evidence Of circumstances alone.
We havereeently had notable instance
of the weakness of this sort of proof in
Vermont, in the case of Phair, now under
reprieve for new trial on charge of
murder; and the same State furnished
the memorable Boorn sensation, in which
man reputed murdered appeared in the
flesh to save the alleged murderer, and
destroy one Of the most perfect series of
evidential circumstances ever woven to-
gether. The French causes celebres -
are full of such things as the tragic tale
of Lesurques and Duboscq, and others.
A striking case Of the sort occurred out
West few years ago, in which a man
was sentenced to twenty years imprison-
ment, as the end OF q chain Of events Of
which he knew nothing. The circum-
stances were that one Capt. w. Fl. Stout
accompanied from Texas to Illinois a
migratory party; that the moneyed
man Of the party was found dead;
that Stouts way was traced a while
by his selling the team and equipments,
and that, finally, he himself, or someone
whom everyone swore to as the identical
actor in these transactions, was caught in
Nevada. He exhibited the most sin
gular concurrence Of physical pecuiari-
ties, such as q spot Of perfectly white hair
above the temple, unlikely in the extreme
W NC CAI6 p1CP511y VI UWO lHdIF1uualS.
They proved to be SO, however, in this
case, absolute evidence being produced
that the real Capt. Stout, who had been
arrested, was accounted for in other
places than the line of migration and the
scene Of murder, during the period in
which these things took place; and so,
after some years Of imprisonment and
disgrace, Stout was "pardoned " for the
crime he had not committed. Who per-
sonated him in so marvellous q way has
never been found out; but it is plain
that, if hanging had been the sentence
Of Stout's trial, there would have been
an irreparable wrong done.
The latest story which brings cireum-
stantial evidence into doubt is located
In Livingston county, III. A young
woman named Mary Murphy started
from her fathers house one Sunday af-
ternoon to walk to her place Of service
in Pontiac, by way of the railroad track.
fortnight or SO later her outraged and
murdered body was found. A negro
named Morris was fixed upon as the
criminal, because he had been seen
walking on the railroad the day Mary
Murphy disappeared, about mile be-
hind her, and because his clothes were
bloody. This was the whole of the evil
dence against him. He proved that he
had been in a fight at Bloomington the
Saturday previous, and in that obtained
the suspicious blood stains. It is said
that the fact that the first war
news was then exciting the public
mind told against the negro, as
somehow personifying the cause. of the
whole national trouble. At all events.
Morris, on no better evidence than we
have mentioned, was found guilty, SEN
fenced and hanged in May 1861. He
died protesting his innocence to the last.
his final words being, You murder me p
This, OF course, does not indicate his in
nocence, for the blacklist and bloodiest
OF criminals would have been just as
likely to have said it.
But recently, in a singular way. Nor
r1s has been exonerated from the stigma
Of guilt. A young scapegrace, who
joined gang Of desperadoes in 1861. is
now IN the prison at Jefersonville, Ind,
and has given the Louisville Courier
Journal an account of this bands evil
deeds, and among them specifies, with
details which carry conviction OF the
story's truth, the outrage and murder Of
Mary Murphy.
Nothing can be done to make up to
poor Morris, the negro, for his muir
dered life; but the facts make heavily
against pronouncing the irreversible
doom Of death ON such merely circum-
stantial grounds Had he been SEN
fenced to life imprisonment, with no
chance of release except proof of inno-
cence, he would doubtless now soon be
set free.
Gen. Grant and the EnOlish Nn1.L,ino,,,nr,