St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1882-02-10
Sentence Pronounced.

AT last, the extreme sentence of the
law has been passed on the murderer
of Garfield, and the people will breathe
more freely now that the end is so
near. Mr.. Scoville's efforts to secure
a new trial have proved futile, so far
though Guiteau has chance to appeal
to the court i'll banc, there is not the
least prospect that the higher court
will entertain the exceptions. On Sat
urday Mr.. Scoville appeared before
Judge Cox and argued i'll favor of
il new trial, setting forth as additional
grounds first, unauthorized converse
lions with the jury by outside parties !;
second, subsequent admissions of an
expert that he thought Guiteau insane,
but did not dare to say SO for fear that
it would injure him in business and in
the public estimation. At the conclu-
sion of the arguments, Judge Cox gave
his decision overriding the motion. As
to the handwriting on the newspaper,
he said there were several circumstan-
ces that made it improbable that at
least two of the names were written by
the gentlemen themselves. Second, if
iurymen, i'll writing in albums, did try
their pens on the paper, it would
amount to nothing in the face of sworn
affidavits of every member of the jury
that they did not see or read paper
during the trial nobody can swear
that the jurors did write their names
on the paper, while they all swear they
did not, and there is no reason to
doubt their veracity. Judge Cox
thought the new evidence sought to be
introduced would not affect the verdict.
When the prisoner WAS requested to
stand up and receive sentence, he de-
livered violent harangue, deuouncing
the Judge and jury and expressing the
opinion that the nation would go down
i'll blood if his body was harmed
When this outburst was concluded,
Judge Cox proceeded to pronounce
sentence, addressing Guiteau as fol-
lows:
You have been convicted of a crime
so terrible in its circumstances and so
tar-reaching i'll its results that it has
drawn upon you the horror of the
whole world and the eXecrations of
your cOuntrymen. The excitement
produced by such an offence made it
no easy task to secure for You fair
and impartial trial, but you have had
the power of the United States treasu-
~ and of the government i'll your ser
vice to protect your person from viO-
lence and to procure evidence from all
parts of the country. You have had as
fair and impartial a jury as ever as
sembled in a court of justice. You
have been defended by counsel with a
zeal and devotion that merits the high
est encomium, and | certainly have
done my best to secure a fair preSenta-
ton of your defence. Notwithstanding
all this, you have been found guilty.
1t would have been "A comfort to many
people if the verdict of the jury had
established the fact that your act was
that of an irresponsible man. 1t would
have left the people the satisfying be
lief that the crime of political assassi-
nation was something entirely foreign
to the institutions and civilization of
our country, but the result has denied
them that comfort. The country will
accept 1t as a fact that crime can be
committed. and the court will have to
deal with it, with the highest penalty
known To the criminal code, to serve
as AN example to others. Your career
has been so extraordinary that people
might well at times have doubted your
sanity, but one cannot but believe that
when the crime was committed you
thoroughly understood the nature of
the crime and its consequences (Gui-