The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1907-04-10
CRISIS IN THAW TRIAL.
JEROME CALLS HIM INSANE
Climax Precipitated When De-
Tense introduced Or. Hamilton.
ATTACK ON PRISONERS COUNSEL
District Attorney Says They Knew
Their Client Was Not Sane
States He Does Not Want an In
sane Man Sent to Chair.

States He Does Not Want an In
sane Man Sent to Chair.
New York City.--After a startling
climax in the most sensational GRIM
inal trial of modern times, Harry X.
Thaw, on trial for the murder of
Stanford White, was brought face to
face with the imminent peril of i'm
prisonment in the State Asylum for
the Criminal Insane in Matteawan
rather than danger of death in the
electric chair at Sing Sing.
Not since the trial was begun nine
weeks ago in the Criminal Branch
of the Supreme Court had here been
a court session filled with so many
surprises, and, when court finally
was adjourned, the general opinion
Of those in the courtroom was that
within a fortnight Thaw would be on
his way to New York's Asylum for
the Criminal Insane.
AS the direct'reSulI of a surprising
ly %audacious To- of the defense, in
calling to the witness stand DR.. Allan
McLane Hamilton in the hope of
Strengthening a jeopardized case,
District Attorney Jerome was given
g%ratuitously the opportunity for
which he has watched since the trial
began. He seized it and laid before
the Court facts looking to the ap-
pointment of a commission to deter
mine the present mental state of the
defendant.
The prop Thaw's counsel sought to
insert beneath a tottering defense
was converted by Mr.. Jerome into a
weapon against it.
In an impassioned address, during
which his voice at times vibrated
with deep emotion, the District At
torney, after the jurymen had retired
at the Courts behest, asserted the
profound belief that Thaw's counsel,
by the deliberate suppression of evil
dence of hereditary faint of insanity
in the defendants family, had forced
the Court and the prosecuting attor-
ney into the anomalous attitude Of
placing on trial for his life a man
who was and who still is the victim
of a progressive and practically hope
less type Of insanity, and who is at
the present moment incapable of
properly celebrating with his coun-
sci upon an issue that concerns his
life.
Mr.. Jerome almost from the begin
ming of the trial has been convinced
that Thaw is a paranoiac. The depo-
sitions made before him and Mr..
Hartridge privately by Dr.. Bingaman
and Dr.. Deeman some weeks ago,
giving direct evidence of four cases
of pronounced insanity, some Of them
epileptic in character, among Harry
Thaw's immediate blood relatives,
tended strongly to confirm the Dis
trict Attorneys belief. 1t was this
he had in mind when he repeatedly
told the Court he hoped to be able
to escape the necessity Of opening
the sluice gates to the food Of fetid
scandal that subsequently was loosed
with the testimony of Evelyn Nesbit
!Thaw.
Though it was District Attorney
Jerome who brought about the condi-
lions that made the appointment of
the Lunacy Commission stand out as
the logical outcome, the purpose of
the District Attorney would have re-
manned far from being accomplished
if it had not been for John B. Glea-
son, one Of Thaw's lawyers. Gleason
insisted on finging himself into the
foreground Of the proceedings, and
the result was that DR.. Allan McLane
Hamilton, called as an alienist for
the defense, asserted p%ointblank that
in his opinion Thaw was insane now,
and that his mental condition was
such as to make him incapable of
consulting nationally with his
sci.
DR.. Hamilton, retained as an eX-
pert by the lawyers who first under
took the Thaw defense, made four
examinations of the defendant in the
Tombs, the first of which was two
days after the homicide. AS a result
he reported his conclusion that Thaw
is a victim Of dementia praecoX of a
paranoiac type, and that the ultimate
recovery in such cases is only about
two per cent. This did not suit the
defendant, who scorned the insanity
defense except as a temporary eXpe-
dent, and who dismissed as his oun
sci the firm of Black, Olcott, Gruber
& Bonynge.
That Mr.. Jerome has all along be-
lieved that Thaw was insane when he
shot White and is insane at the pres
ent time he made perfectly plain in
the course of an imprisoned address
to the court after DR.. Hamilton had
testified. The scene when he made
his appeal was n of great excite
ment. Every spectator was leaning
forward in his seat, fearful of missing
a single word and hung upon the en-
fences that fell from Mr.. Jerome's
lips. The District Attorney was
much moved and Justice Fitzgerald
himself showed that the case had
cached its crisis.
AS for Thaw's lawyers, a condition
oCdering upon panic prevailed
am1g them. They were all on their
!eet md nos of them had hurried
INSIDE Of the rail where they could
talk VIII Mr.. Delmas. This was the
state OF affairs when the jury had
been sent iom the room in order that
Mr.. Jerome eight tell the court what
he knew frCn his Investigations
American Pe,nut Shortaoe