The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1879-07-16

The case of Mrs. Smith and "Cove" Ben
nett is now under consideration by court in
which Judge Knapp has no voice, and will
be decided on its merits. The conviction
of these prisoners was on purely circum-
stantial evidence, and it is the general be-
lief that the chain of circumstances was not
sufficiently strong to attach the crime to
them SO Enthusiastically as to warrant
verdict of guilty. On the trial
one of the accused persons. Mrs.
Smith, testified to the bad feeling existing
between her deceased husband and his
brother Isaac, since dead. The deceased had
been separated from his first wife and his
brother Isaac had married her. Violent
quarrels had occurred between the two
men, and the murdered man had recently
prevented his brother from obtaining
position on o railroad through disclosing to
the railroad managers the fact that he had
been in Jail. While she was thus testify
ing Judge Knapp interrupted her, accord
ing to the following copy of the official
stenographer's notes.
The Court-How is this competent?
Mr. Winfield replied that he thought the relations
between Isaac and the deceased were such as to
justify him in laying them before the jury, and he
thought that the defence able to show more
threats and bad blood the part of than
on the part of the defendants Judge
Knapp said they were not trying Isaac. and there
counsel's examination in this direction stopped.
In the Commonwealth against Webster it
was decided that in o conviction on circum-
stantial evidence ''the circumstances, taken
together, should be Of a conclusive nature
~,
satisfactory conclusion, and producing, in
effect reasonable and moral certainty that
the accused, and no one else, committed the
offence charged. 1t is essential,
therefore, that the circumstances, taken as
whole, and giving them their reasonable
and just weight and no more, should, to q
moral certainty, exclude every other
hypothesis. The evidence must establish
the corpus deficit, as it is termed, or the
offence committed as charged; and in case
of homicide must not only prove death by
violence, but must to reasonable extent
exclude the hypothesis of suicide or of a
death by the act of any other person. This
is to be proved beyond any reasonable
doubt" rs Cushing's Reports, 1851
Judge Knapp refused to hear evidence
that tended to establish the hypothesis that
the death of the murdered Jersey police
man might have been caused by the act of
another person rather than by the act of the
accused.
In the plea for conviction known as Judge
Knapp's charge to the jury the Court,
commenting on the improbabilities Of Mrs.
Smiths story Of the events attending the
murder, said :-"Either this story is true,
that somebody came in by this broken
floor and removed the crooks and used
chloroform upon her, then struck her hus-
band and left while she slept, or else it
makes strong evidence that she was q par
ticipant in the act, and these signs-the
chloroform bottle and the towel, the closet,
the crooks and the board-are but decep-
tive appearances contrived by her either
alone or some one with her to elude inquiry
and avert suspicion-whichi is it?"
In Bodine against the People, "where on
a prosecution for murder the evidence was
cir,umstantial and the Judge instructed
the jury that fair character was important
to the prisoner, and that they were to in
quire why it was that she had given no
evidence of her general character, it was
held that such instruction suggested the
inference that her character was bad, and
was erroneous" [Bodine VS.. People,
DEMO, 281.]
II this instruction suggested the infer
ence" of bad character to the jury, how
much more strongly does the instruction
of Judge Knapp suggest the inference"
that Mrs. Smiths story was lie and a
nrnnf of her ruilt 2