The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1897-03-02
TWO MUST DIE.
Court of Errors Refuses to
Give GEM and Mackin
New Trials.
INSANITY NOT ESTABLISHED.
How the Condemned Men Took the
News-Kohl's New Lease
Of Life.

Justice Gummere, sitting III the Court
of Errors and Appeals in Trenton, rem
dered the opinion of the Court yesterday
in the case of Joh Mackin. convicted in
the Hudson Oyer and Terminer Of muir
der in the first degree and sentenced to
be hanged. The decision sustains the
sentence of the lower court and closes the
last avenue of hope for the condemned
murderer. Mackin was defended by Nor
man L, Rowe n John A. DENIM.
Mackin was charged with numbering his
wife, and the defense jnterposed in his be-
half was that he was insane. Exception
was taken to the charge of the trial
Judge, who said, amoung other %things:-
IF you should find that he-Mackin-
was by reason of any disease of the mind
at the time of the commission of the
fatal act, incapable of distinguishing be-
tween right and wrong in respect to that
act which he was then doing, then you
will acquit him of any degree of murder,
then you will find him not guilty" The
Court of Errors fails to find, after a
thorough scrutiny of the facts in the
proceedings below, that Mackin suffered
any wrong or injury. The syllabus says:
Where insanity is set up as a defense
in a criminal case the test of response
bility is the capacity of the defendant at
the time of the doing of the complained
of, to distinguish between right and
wrong with respect to that act.
THE law does not recognize as a de-
Tense to a criminal charge a form of in
sanity in which the defendant knows that
the act which he does is wrong, but not
withstanding is unable to refrain from
doing it."
New trials were denied in the cases of
GEM of Jersey City, both of whom were
convicted of murder in the first degree
and sentenced to be hanged. Clawson
age, who shot a former employer named
%liberately. Clawson going to Hodgetts
house one morning, calling him out and
then shooting. 1t is anticipated in some
the Court Of Pardons will commute Claw
sentence to Imprisonment for life.
GEM murdered a. girl named Cara Ar
company and who promised t marry
him but afterwards refused. He was a
sailor, and on his return from one of his
trips abroad he found the faithless one
living with another man.
A new trial was granted In the case of
Murderer Henry. Kohl of Newark, who
was convicted of the murder of his cou-
sin. Judge Dixon made the
ment, but no opinion was filed. Justice
Dixon said that in criminal cases when
the evidence does not satisfy beyond a
guilty a conviction will not stand. The
evidence in the Kohl case, he said, was
of this nature, and therefore the judgment
and Justices Gummere and Magic alone
voted to affirm the Judgment below.
GEM and Mackin heard the news his
and sentence had been affirmed
by the Court of Errors n Appeals.
Each took 1t in a characteristic amer.
Mackin became weak and san Town on
his cot murmuring: well I deserve it;
God have mercy on me-"
GEM on the contrary received the in
with his accustomed bragga-
docio. He was even indignant that he
had not been told of 1t last night. AS
nobody in the Jail had heard of the de-
cision until this morning. it would have
been difficult for anybody there to tell
him last night. :
GEM was arraigned on September IA,
to plead to an indictment for the
murder of Clara Arnim, his mistress. in
Hoboken. At that time he professed
anxiety to be hanged so that he could
join his "Edelweiss" as he called his
was changed to not guilty n on May
6. 1895. his trial for murder began. or
May 5 he was convicted of murder in the
first degree n a few days later Justice
Lippincott sentenced him to be hanged
on July rs. A writ of error was taken
out and he was tried again on May 6,
1896, just n year from the time of his
first trial. Again he was convicted and
July 16 was fixed as the date for his exc
Another writ of error was taken
out, the n which has just been dis
missed.
Mackin, who murdered his wife and
mother-in-law and attempted to kill his
father-in-law, was tried on April %, 1896,
and convicted. He was sentenced to be
on June IS, but Governor Werts
granted a reprieve until July 16, the day
fixed for GEMS execution. The Court of
was appealed to in both cases,
but refused to interfere. Mackfn 0
a writ or error, which has now been
dismissed.
Justice Lippincott was In Trenton to-
day, so that 1t could not be ascertained
when he will resentence the murderers.