Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1883-12-12
JAMES NUTS TRIAL.
BUTTHREE JURORS SECURED
Out of a Panel of Eighty, the Court
Decides that Fayette County
is Biased
AND TRANSFERS THE CASE
TO PITTSBURGH.

AND TRANSFERS THE CASE
TO PITTSBURGH.
! UNIoNTowN, Dec. 5.-No Fayette
county jury will determine the fate of
James Mutt. After exhausting the
largest panel Of jurors ever drawn in
the county, the Court this afternoon
granted a molten on the part of The de-
tense for a change of venue, and fixed
Pittsburgh as the place of trial.
When the prisoner was arraigned at
9 O'Clock this morning the court room,
within the bar, gave fairly accurate
picture of the Dukes trial reversed,
The short, strong figure and tat tea-
lures of the defendant in the former
case are now mouldered down upon
his bones in the little burying ground
in German township In his place in
the dock his morning taller, slender
er figure lifted another smooth, young
face up before the eyes OF the Clerk OF
Courts, the face and figure of young
man who pleaded mot guilty" to the
charge of numbering the man who had
risen up from the same chair less than
year ago to plead mot guilty" Of
numbering the father of the present
defendant. The same clerk read the
: Indictment to each, and gave to each
with equal apparent fervOr his official
benediction, "God send you a good de-
: li7erance." Judge Wilson sat again
upon the bench, no more delicate or
dyspeptic looking now than then. Be
side him to-day, however, was his soon
to be successor, Judge-eiect lnghram
About the prisoner were grouped the
same faces that surrounded the Com
monwealth table at the trial of Dukes
w. II. Playford, strong and earnest,
with his hair rampant as ever above
his forehead; beside him A. d. Boyd,
Young and blonde and handsome. Be-
side the prisoner, her long Grape veil
sweeping his knee, as she leaned fre-
ouently over to whisper to him, was
his mother, the widow of Captain
Mutt. The dead Captains brother,
: whose resemblance to him was so
remarked upon at the last trial sat
near her, by her side with another
brother and one of hers, James Wells.
TIE COUNSEL FROM ABhOAD.
Added to these familiar figures were
!, three others. Opposite the prisoner,
! towering above all about him, Senator
: Voorhees, of Indiana, the tall syca-
!, more, sat, his hands crossed upon his
= knees, his eyes intently study the face
of each Juror as he was called. Ex-
changing whispers occasionally with
voorhees,, Major A. NJ. Brown sat be-
!, tween the big Senator and the white
haired man with the Emperor William
face and whiskers, Marshall Swartz-
. weder. The prisoner was scarcely so
calm, so stolid, rather, as the man
whose verdict of acquittal he reversed.
His lips trembled occasionally during
the first half hour, and he fdgeted
=, nervously at times in bis chair.
: At the Commonwealth table sat the
= same District Attorney who had pros
ecuted Dukes; at his elbow young
John Bo, lie, whose fathers shrewed
: speech let Dukes 60 free to his death;
d at the other side of the table d f. Pat
e terson, who had been brought up from
o Pittsburg to meet the shock of the
heavy artillery upon the other side.
: Behind them, carefully nursing his silk
8 hat of ancient black and frizzly surface
j upon his knees, spare and stopped,
y with thin face and forehead looking
over the back of his head, sat oil AS
bury Struble, the step father of n. L.
Dukes, and beside him Lewis Dukes,
s the dead mans brother. Mrs. Struble
e was not present.
!. From the moment the crier called
VIM L. Stewart, clerk, of George twp,
the first Juror, out of the crowd that
thronged the Court room from bar rail
ing to door, until 3 o'clock this after
D., noon, when Play ford rose, after the
K last name had been called, and ac-
t knowedging the impossibility of get
= ting an impartial jury in Fayette
: county, moved for change of venue.
t it was a series of dreary, uninteresting
: repettions of the same questions and
7 the same answers.
t JURORS WHO WOULDN'T Do.
VIM. L.. Stewart, clerk, of George
township, had formed an opinion. He
would do his BEST if sworn, to try the
case upon the evidence, but it would
REQUIRE some evidence to turn him from
his present opinion The Judge laid
e down the rule which be followed
: through the panel, that if it would re-
1 quire any of the evidence to be con-
!. sumed in driving out present impress
: sion the man having such an impression
! was unfit to try case of such grave
e Importance. Such an acknowledgement
from a Juror he ruled to be sufficient
, disqualification, and challenges upon it
were invariably sustained. Clerk
. Stewart was challenged for cause. SO
was the next man, Elisha Rckard, q
sturdy country blacksmith, Who declar-
. ed that his opinion was so firmly fixed
that no amount of testimony could
change it. William Patton, a bald
headed carpenter who came next, would
= have served but he lives in the section
of the county in which Captain Mutt
used to reside, aud the prosecution bar
red him cut of the box with one of the
r four peremptory challenges allowed
j them. The defense didn't like the
l hard, stern features of the next man.
: John Hanan, an old Dunbar farmer,
and challenged him peremptorily. And
so it went on. The sixth man called,
Thomas j. Conn, a country merchant,
the handsomest man in the panel, had
r peculiar ideas about capital punishment,
but so long as the law stood he would
find ye.dict in accordance with it and
the facts The prosecution didn't seem
.. to admire his peculiar ideas and stood
oh. u mt a