Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1907-11-25
SECOND IHAN TRIAL
AGAIN DELAYED
Will Not Come on For Hearing
Until Late in January, By
Agreement Of Both Sides
WILL EVELYN THAW TESTIFY?
Doubted That Fair Young Wife Will
Be Compelled to Undergo Ordeal =
Insanity Admission and Long Con-
finement May Be Outcome-Second
Trial to Be Brief.

New York, Nov. 25.-The second
trial Of Harry X Thaw, set for Dec.
9, will again be postponed. There is
little chance that it will be called un-
til late in January. The decision to
ask for postponement has been
agreed upon by both sides. ThaW's
counsel mas applied to the court for
permission to inspect the secret evi-
dence presented before the lunacy
commission during the progress of the
first trial. There is rumor that
| Thaw's counsel may apply for a
change of Venue.
Tombs prison, which he has occupied
since the night of the tragedy on Mad
ison Square Roof Garden June 25,
1906 is planning for his second trial
with the same confidence of acquittal
that he prepared for the first ordeal.
He daily advises with his counsel,
chafes at the delays already encoun-
tered in getting his story before
second grand jury and is impatient for
his days in court to begin.
1t is nearly a year since the first
trial was begun. 1t covered a period
and two nights of deliberation the jury
could not agree. Seven of the twelve
men who heard the dramatic recital Of
Evelyn Nesbit ThaW story of al
legged wrongful treatment at the hands
of the noted architect; story that
was flashed by telegraph and cable to
every part of the civilized world and
read as one of the most remarkable ut
terances ever heard in a court room
failed to believe that her confession to
her husband had justified him three
years later in taking the life of the
man charged with the ruin of his Choir
us-girl wife. They voted for guilty of
murder in the first degree. Five of the
jurors, on the other hand, were ready
to acquit, most of them believing that
ThaW'S mind had been so upset over
the story of the girls downfall that he
was bereft reason and was entitled
to that provision of the law which ex-
cuses person so insane as not to
know the nature or quality Of his act
and not to know that the act is wrong.
At the police station the night of the
tragedy and afterward in the city pris-
on, ThaW contended he was acting as
an agent of Providence in sending
Stanford White to his grave
Defense May Be Insanity.
Great interest centers in the course
of the defense at the coming trial. 1t
is generally believed that despite any
ideas of justification which Thaw may
claim, his present lawyers will confine
themselves to making out a case of
legal insanity. This may be emotion
al, hereditary, both of these phases of
the matter having gone into at the first
trial. Six or seven alienists took the
stand at that hearing and testified
that Thaw had been driven insane by
the story told him when he and the
girl, who was to become his wife, We're
stopping together in Paris. DR.. Brit
ton D. Evans, superintendent of the
New Jersey state hospital for the in
sane, made a worldwide stir by eX-
pressing that Thaw's condition of mind
the night of the tragedy as a "brain-
storm"
District Attorney Jerome combatted
this plea with the testimony of seven
experts, all of whom declared that
Thaw's insanity was not such as to
deprive him of knowledge as to the
wrongful nature Of his act. Notwith-
III
with District Attorney Jerome that
Thaw was medically insane not only
at the time of the shooting but thruol,t
the trial; which, they declared, he was
unable intelligently to advise with
counsel or to appreciate the character
of the proceedings.
Will Evelyn Testify?
There is much speculation as to
whether or not Evlyn Nesbit ThaW, the
schoolgirl-like figure about which the
storm and tempest of the first trial
beat out it's fury, will again take the
stand in her husbands defense. A
report has been current for some time
that she will not, but the ThaW case
always has been surrounded by every
class of rumor and suggestion that
human ingenuity can invent. A defin-
ite decision as to the matter of pls.c-
ing the girl again upon the stand may
not be arrived at until the trial is
we'll under way. Without her testi-
mony there would be difficulty in max
ing out a case of emotional insanity
a defense which would have to be re
lied upon to gain ThaW absolute free
DOM If medical or hereditary inssn-
Il, lof. {l,xN 1S,.>f
Thaw can hope for is an indefinite
commitment to the state hospital for
the criminal insane at MatteaWan.
The second trial may not last more
than a few weeks. It's length will de-
pend entirely upon the time required
in securing a jury. This is expected
to be tedious work. as there are few
persons in New York county who did
not read the details of the former
trial, and who have not some prejudice