Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1882-02-09
COLE
Convicted of Manslaughter
For the Shooting of John
Harmon.

He is Sentenced to the Peniten-
tiary for 15 Years.
Lust Thursday morning at O'clock the
Jury in the Cole Harmon case brought In
verdict of manslaughter, after taking
fourteen ballots. Cole was apparently
satilised as, after hearing the judges charge
(which occupied abont forty minutes) he
had made up his mind that the verdict
would be guilty of murder. Mr.. Tyler,
his attorney. made motion tor "a new trial
which was overruled, and he was given
thirty Jays in which to iile bill OF cx-
ceptions,
Judge Moore yesterday pronounced tho sentence
Of the law on Peter D. Cte Convicted at the present
term of the Common Pfeas Cotn, of manslaughser.
in the killing Of John Harmon The following Is tho
full sentence OF the court:
"Peter d. Cole, 1t becS!Ecs my dnty, tsser the
aw, to pronounce the tttlttnce Of thelRw UPON you
In doing 80 will take tile liberty Of saying that the
principal object OF punishment for the commission
Of crime is to protect society. Another object how
ever is to set an example 70 Me criminal himself
and 10 others, TO Serer him and them from
violating the law. PSashment is almost sure. to
follow violations OF saw. speak of this because of
claim made that an aot such yours should be
justified aud the perpetrator go unpunished. If such
rule prevailed anarchy would soon take the place of
order; and the right of life, person and property,
would exist only in name. The very machinery Of
the government which is created to redress griev-
ances, to right wrongs and to protect public ard pri-
yate interests, would be rendered helpless, and each
individual would seek in his own way, and according
to his own measure of right and justice, remedy
for his imagined or actual wrongs.
have no desire to say anything that may tend to
either humiliate or degrade you. I pronounce no
sentence in any spirit except one of SORROW and re-
gret that am compelled to enforce punishment for
Violated.
You were indicted for the murder of ] ohm Harmon.
The indictment charged you with murder in the
first degree; it also included murder in the second
degree and manslaughter. You had fair trial by
an impartial jury. The only questions to be and
which tried, list, Did you shoot and kill
John Harmon? ID, Were you a sane man at the
the time you did the act?
That you shot and killed John Harmon you did not
deny. That you intend ID so at the time you aid the
act you coolly admitted that you were sane at the
time the criminal act was committed was about as
as well established as the fact of killing; that your
claim OF insanity was the mercst pretense cannot be
denied.
| 10 say thata criminal should be permitted to es-
cape, when previous disease the mind is estab-
hshed and that at the moment he does the act he is
controlled by al irresistible, insane impulse when he
knows what he is doing, intends in his own mind to
do the criminal act, and knows its consequences
would be to throw down the bars of justice and per-
init every man who commits crime in violence or
passion to Such teaching wDuld aka trio
farce and courts OF law mockery
Looking to the proofs in the case in the most fa-
vorable light possible, the jury extremely merci-
full toward you in its findings; it could well have
found, from the evidence, of the higher degrees
of homicide The jury was much more mercful
toward you than you were towards your victim when
he cried out in his helpessness to be saved from
your death-deeling shots, or than you were toward
the little, helpless boy at his side when he in his
Childish anguish, appealed in vain to you to spare
his father. You, without mercy followed John Har-
mon to his death
If all you claimed true, it did not Justify YOU
| in law. Your wrongs, if they existed, were not
rghted by shooting Harmon, neither did that act re-
store the virtue and purity of your WIFE or wipe ont
the shame ahd disgrace that attached her improp-
| er conduct.
To say that the virtue of women requires protect
ion by the use of the revolver is an insult to the
pure and virtuons wives and mothers of our land.
Virtue is its own best protecr0.
You sought to avenge your own wrongs, supposed
or real outside OF the law; you knew you were vio-
lating the law when you did 80. jury has con-
vcted you of the crime of manslaughter and it only
remains for the Court to pronounce the sentence Of
the law, which is, that you be imprisoned in the
pententary of the State at hard labor for the period
of fifteen years, no part of which time is to be in
solitary confinement and that you pay the costs of
prosecution,
While 1 think your offence mcritcd the full term
of the law, have taken into consideration your age
which is approaching forty, and the evidence of
former good character which appears to have existed
through life and having no desire to be otherwise
than merciful not only in your but in all cases.
have given you five years less than the full pen
atty of the statute.