Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1901-08-01
ERWIN OPENS DEFENSE.
NOTED CRIMINAL LAWYER
MAKES TELLING PLEA FOR
pAppv

BARRY.
Bill Erwin, the noted criminal law
yer, who has defended a number of per-
IONS charged with murder in this
state, including a couple at Bismarck,
opened the case for the defense in the
Barry trial at Langdon. The report
of his opening address would indicate
that the Tall Pine has lost lone of
his %eloquence and responsiveness, as
the jury is reported to have been
moved to tears by his plea. Insan-
ity, he said, had run in the Barry fam
lily for generations. He took up the
history of the Barry family, and link
by link he connected the disease for
two generations. The sister, Mary
Ann, had been in the asylum in Lon
don, Ontario, for seven months before
she came to North Dakota. Mr.. Err
win told the jury how the disease had
worked on the Barry family on the
fathers side, and on that Of the
mother, too. Several of the family on
both sides had died, either of fits OF
as lunatics. Three years ako, while
the prisoner, William Barry, was Wis
iting his brother John at the old home
in Canada he told how on entering the
house the defendant sat with his hands
supporting his head, and John on en-
tering the house greeted him and in
quired as any person would for a rela-
tive whom he had not seen for a num-
Der of years.
The prisoner responded in substan-
TALLY these words: 81 am doing bet
ter now; I will soon be able to help
you, but I have been in Jail for the
past six years and have had a hard
time of it."
He went IN to state that some of his
relatives had been selling alkali water
and he guessed that was the cause of
it. The defendant never had been in
Jail before this tragedy and he must
therefore necessarily have been in a
delusion.
During the same visit Barry received
a letter from his sister informing him
that two of his horses had died and
that three more were sick. He at once
went into a rage and swore that his
Brother Dick was the cause of it and
said he was sorry he was ever taken
out Of the asylum. Mr.. Erwin asserted
that this streak followed the defendant
up to and after the commission of the
homicide, for he had mistrusted his
attorney, Judge Templeton, as con-
spring with Helgeson, one of the wit
nesses for the prosecution, to send
him to the asylum so that they could
get his property. The evidence of the
mother, counsel said, would prove the
insanity in the family of the present
generation, and would also show how
defendant, at the age of II, was
kicked in the head and how, from that
time on, he was subject to terrible
spells Of anger and rage.
On the night before the tragedy.
counsel asserted, Mary Ann was COM
pletely insane in one of the rooms up
stairs. The defendant sat holding his
sister while she was in a mad rage and
opposite him in the other bed lay her
seducer, fast asleep. Through the
window streamed the pale moon. AS
the defendant sat there he was struck
by the disease of his sister and thought
he heard a voice crying to him to go
down stairs or Mellem would murder
him. He went down and could hear
this voice from every corner of the
house. In an eloquent voice the
speaker proclaimed that the laws of
this great republic did not compel that
a man should be struck down who
acted without the use of reason and in
the defense of his home.