The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-03-22
Life Sentence in Peni-
 tentiary Expected.
Prisoners Attorneys Set Up Plea Of Self Defence, But Their Eyi- dence Is Not Considered
 strong.
BL WILL T. sHEEHAN.

|
 Mount. but if the jury does what thu crowd on the outside expects it to d' | 1t will bring in verdict sending Con
 nors to the penitentiary for life. 1 It may be that some of the jurors 1 are firm for hanging sentence, ant l 1t may be that some of them are hold ' Ing out for verdict of manslaughtei l in the first degree, but the opinion ou of the jury room is that the most o the jurors would send the young Ala bama farmer to the penitentiary fol ! life for his violent and bloody crime Tn, defense does not expect an acquittal I The only plea that his attorneys made to tho jurors was plea for a yer dict of manslaughter in the first de gree. This was all they had to ask I from the jury In the evidence they could ask nothing else.
 connors had killed Mount. He had run him down until the pursued man was stopped by a barred door and ther, caught like rat in trap Mount had turned screaming in his fight to re- ceive the death blow from his larger antagonist. Connors had desperately pursued his smaller enemy and when he had him with his back to the wall had stabbed him through tho heart Was there in the crime wiifulness and deliberation, that which makes II murder under the laws of Alabama? Witness after witness followed each other and told monotouously of the many threats Connors had made and the whole of 1t seemed like some ter rible rosary. There could be no doubt of malice.
 But the defense had some hopes that the seriousness of their case would be modified by the plea of self defense But in his remarkably lucid charge to the jury Judge J. C. Richardson SC laid down the law of self defense that none of the jury might go astray. All degrees oI murder, manslaughter and homicide, Judge Richardson defined and explained. He then put before the jury the three elements of self defense l first. the defendant must be free from fault In bringing on the difficult sec ond, he must have been in imiment bodily peril and, third. there must have | been no way of retreat open to him without increasing his peril And SO with all the evidence in the ease looked dark for Jesse Connors. for the evidence had not shown that Con nors could successfully make the plea of self defense. His evidence lacked the essentials the law required. There remained nothing that his attorneys could do except 0 argue that he drove
 
 in the heat of passion.
 Tn the morning the attorneys argu- guments were made. They were of a | high order and we'll worthy of a case in which mans life was at stake.
 The defense relied upon two features of the case as sustaining it's plea of self defense, first, the testimony of Os- car Holland partially corroborated and the threats alleged to have been made by Mount against Connors.
 The ruling of the court demolished this second theory, for any testimony of this sort the court held to be incom- petent. The court held that the de- fense must first show that the defen- dant was free from all fault in bring ing on or provoking the difficulty. And this the defense could not do
 In view of this ruling. whatever of good there was in the testimony of George Hawkins. Charlie Alley, Andrew Kennedy and Gid Tisdale was lost to the defense. They were supposed to know of threats made by Mount against Connors. but the defense had no way of getting what these witnesses had to tell
 The testimony of Oscar Holland was, however. positive that Connors was cut at the first struggle in the door of Gilchrists store, The witness was quite positive that young Mount ran his hand in his pocket and pulled out his knife with the blade open. The witness swore that he saw Mount cut Connors in the neck and then cut him twice in the side.
 He was partially corroborated by John Carnett
 Drs. Marvin Kendrick and J. R. Horn were called upon to describe the ma ture of the wounds sustained by Jesse Connors. He had a cut in the neck and two severe cuts in the side.
 Andrew Kennedy. recalled to the stand, produced the clothing worn by Connors on the day of the tragedy The broad brimmed hat. was cut. when the knife made the wound on Connors neck. Through the overaIls there were two cuts and there were cuts in the sweater. And all the clothing was stiff and blood stained.
 Here the defense rested and Jesse Connors had not been put upon the stand.
 To break down the testimony of Os- car Holland the State called Martin Mount Frank Tisdale and Mount Will holt. These witnesses said that Hol- land was in front of Morgans store when the fight began and therefore could not have seen the struggle of the two men in the door of Gilchrist's store.
 And with this all evidence was com pleted.
 In opening the argument County So- licitor c. O. Dickey, for the State said;
 Tt is common Knowledge that mur- d'rs are too common. too prevalent in Crenshaw county, When will 1t end? The judge on the bench can't stop them Fhc solicitor cant stop them. The sherjft can't stop them, Only the iu- ries of Crenshaw county can stop them How? An, gentlemen. over in the jail yard We have scaffold. When that IS put to use wit all the privacy that the law provides, when the murderer IS carried there w'th only enough men to guard him, when the murderer Is carried there, dropped through the tran door and hanged by the neck until dead. then tho murders in Crcnshaw 'ounty will stop"
 MT. Dickey described Connors going ID and down the streets of Brantley ,ursng and vOwing vengeance on little 1 lemmie Mount. For more than n week i lc had been upon the streets of Rrant- ey repeating those desperate threats.
 And on the day Of the murder he fol- l lowed that poor little constructive from place to place, in Brantley. said | MT Dickoy. He ran him from store to store with this little fellow knowing 'ull well the terrible danger he Was in | He called upon the protection Of the | aw, and that aVailed him nothing
 In closing. Mir. Dickey declared that | { was the most heinous crime that ever | ell under his observation. He de- | naud"d of the iury for The State that | hey hang th0 defendant and make an |