The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-10-19
AHEARST MAN ON THE BENCH.
GOFF AND HIS RECORD OF RE-
VERSALS BY HIGHER COURTS.
His Rulings in Capital Cases Upset by the
Court Of Appeals -Rebuked for tho
Admission OF Improper Testimony
and for Evident Bias In His Charges.

fis NuIlnEs IN Auplt0I Eases Upset Dy inc
Court Of Appeals -Rebuked for tho
Admission OF Improper Testimony
and for Evident Bias In His Charges.
John w. Gof. who is one Of the candi-
dates for the Supreme Court that Hearst
got Murphy &c put on the Murphy-Hearst
judiciary ticket, has the record OF being
reversed oftener by the Court Of Appeals
than any other m&n who ever sat in the
Court of General Sessions. Before he had
been a year on the bench he gained a repu-
tation as a jurist whose opinions on law
and evidence almost invariably differed
from those Of the higher courts. So often
we're his decisions reversed that It became
the fashion to picture him standing on his
head.
In the case Of Maria BARBER, who vas
tried before Cor for the murder Of her
lover and sentenced to death by the Re-
corder, the conviction was set aside by the
Court of Appeals. Judge O'Brien wrote
the opinion. W hioh was unanimous. and in
it he took occasion TO score numerically
the trial judge. Lawyers say that no
trial Judge was ever so severely ebuked.
The opinion held that the defendant was
not guilty Of murder in the first deg rec
unless the act was premeditated, not only
with the intent to kill but also with de-
liberation and generalization. Then it
vent on to lay down the methods which
should rave been employed to ascertain
whether she was actually guilty Of muir
der in the first degree. Continuing the
Court said:
THE learned Court instructed the Jury
that the method Of determining the question,
and the only method, was by considering
her act at the time it was committed. These
Instructions excluded from the considera-
ton OF the jury all the facts and circum-
stances Of which the homicide was but the
elimination. We think the charge in this
respect was erroneous
But the Barbieri case stood by no means
alone. In 1893 a murderer, who was con-
victed before COT. died in his cell before
he could he executed. The lawyers said
then that il was an act of mercy 10 COT
because the case Of this murderer was the
only capital case at the trial OF which the
Recorder had presided and which after.
ward had been presented to the Court OF
Appeals for review in which the Recorder
had not been reversed. In September,
1898. he was reversed twice in eight days,
although prior TO that time there had not
been a reversal in a capital case tried in
the COuTL Vi OohO'aA SO9S
years.
II was quickly follow5E ny a decision in the
case Of VincerSo n inc, an insane Italian
-. ;,au ueen convicted before COT. These
two cases were preceded by a reversal in
the case OF, Caroline Kraft. convicted OF
~mansLaughter in the first degree. Those
three cases had cost the county OF New
York something like $50 900. The higher
courts I'VE been unsparing in their criti-
cisma of the Recorders rulings, not even
COUGHING, their opinions in the diplomatic
~anRuag generally used in he administra-
ton of a judicial rebuke. 49,,
One of the most important cases in which
the Court OF Appeals reversed Recorder
Gof was that Of Roland B, MolineuX. who
was tried for murder in having sent poison
through the mails. h poison was sent
10 Harry Cornish, but il killed the woman
witt whom he boarded. The trial was a
long one, but the conviction Cor murder
In the first degree was set aside by the
Court Of Appeals on errors made by. the
Judee, Molineux was finally acquitted
and he is now a free man..
There are other instances in which Record
or Cof has been reversed in the Appellate
Division. One of them was the ease OF an
Italian named Cassata, whom the Recorder
had sentenced to nineteen years imprIson-
ment for ~manslaughteT in the first degree,
The reversal was based on Cons charge TO
the Jury. The opinion. in which all the
Justices Of the court concuTred, was written
NV Justice O'Brien, who said Almost in sc
MANY words that the Recorder forgot the
evidence OF two witnesses for the defence
and misstated the facts as we'll as the Law
TO the Jury, all TO the prejudice OF the pris'