The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-01-14
TRIAL MOVES WITH A RUSH Thaw's Counsel Makes Dramatic Speech. MANY SURPRISES ARE SPRUNG Life History of the Defendant Told
 to Jury. Physicians and Trained Nurses Who Had Attended ThAw gre Hurry ling from Europe to Tes-
 ,tify in His Behalf.
 
MANY SURPRISES ARE SPRUNG

| moved with a rush today. After the State had presented it's direct case and Assistant District Attorney Garvan had characterized the killing of Stanford White as a i.'premeditated deliberate and cowardly murder" Martin W. Lit- tleton. for the defense. made the open- Ing plea for the prisoner.
 His promise of new evidence was sem sptionai' and held the supreme atten- tion of all in the court room. District Attorney Jerome. seemingly taken by surprise.l seated himself in the witness chair, the better to hear the outline of the new defense. Mir. Littieton prom. ised to forego chain of circumstances and to procure line of testimony which will prove Harry K. Thaw unde. niably insane at the time of the homi- eide. Evidence of hereditary insanity and of strange. unusual acts of Thaw not even hinted at during the first trial, was told of by Mir. Littleton. who ] said that physicians and nurses who | had attended Thaw were hurrying here from Europe; that teachers of the de- | fendant in childhood would be on hand to give their impressions of ''the wide- eyed. distant boy" @
 Tn conclusion Mir. Littleton chal- lenged the District Attorney to pro- duce a single reputable physician who would say that Thaw was not insane at the time he killed the noted ar@ | chitect.
 BristIed With Surprises.
 1 Mfr. Littleton's speech fairly bristIed I with surprises. He startled the court room by declaring that after Evelyn Nesbft had told him her story in Paris | fin 1903. Thaw "drenehed himself with poison" and would have died but for the heroic work of three physicians who labored over him ali of one night. Mir. Jerome had his surprise to of fer too, and when Mir. Littleton start ed to launch into the relations of stan ford White with the girl whom Thaw married. the District Attorney was on hIs feet with an objection. Justice Bowling sustained him and the name of the architect was net linked again with that Of ti1a lafandxntss wife. Mr. Littleton touched but lightly upon the girls story. as she told it 10 Thaw, but careful as he was again on this the prosecuting officer. who said.
 MT. LittIeton Is now strRying Into field of stun which in my opinion will be excluded :"
 Again Justice Bowling sustained the objection. It was reported at the be- ginning that Mir. Jerome would light this year to exclude the testimony of young N1FSs IudW.
 MT. Littleton spared neither Thaw nor his family in his recital of the de- fendants8 life history During the speech Thaw sat wtld-eyed and pallid, looking fxediy at his counsel. To- ward the close he seemed rather dis pleased with something that was said and leaning forward scribbled off a
 "A Drama,tic Speech.
 IT. / ffflafdnfR aOaaCh vvaa haf dramatic and impassioned at times and was keenly followed by the jury, de- spite the rather frequent objections from the District Attorney, who decried the flights of oratory as having no place in an opening statement of fact
 Thaw's ancestry. marked by decided taints of insanity on both the fathers and mothers side, according to his chief counsel. was drawn with great care and then the defendant himself was pictured as irrational, cratic and insane as a boy who oscillating be- tween ''starship and madness. between brilliance and darkness" fought un- availipgly against the fever of insani- -ty which coursed in his blood at birth.
 "I make no claim for this defendant above those of the average man to morals. vices or virtures," declared Mr. Littleton.
 But say his life history is enough to free him from the charge that he was responsible for his act. Add to his history, the heart breaking episode of his love for the young woman who became his wife and her recital to him of a story which flashed to the four quarters of the globe. made all the world that reads stand still and wonder, and l shall have no hesitancy in asking you If you have not a reas- enable doubt as to whether he was sane Atn ngObf' nF fbTa dapl,tra aRedy. And upon that doubt shall ask you for a verdict of not guilty"
 Mir. Littieton told of a trip abroad taken by Thaw in 1899, when he was ifi and insane at Rome. Monte Carlo and London, being under the care of physicians and nurses at each place and declaring he would produce these physicians and nurses as far as pos sible to tell their stories.
 Teachers who kept diaries about the strange child who sat in their classes, also will come. he said, to tell the jury about the early life and tenden- cies of the defendant. Describing the killing of White Mir. Littleton said:
 Act of a Mailman.
 "Thaw's madness, born and bred in him. had been set on fire by the stories he had heard. He had gone to the district attorney with them and to MT. Comstock; they ran in his head un- til staggering among the cnalrs or Madison Square garden yet not drunk. his eyes burning like two great coals of fire. unable intelligently to answer questions put to him3 maniacal in the last degree. lost. lost as he was in Rome, in Monte Carlo and in London. the blind. confusion of insanity over. came him and he fired. The result was not murder but the act of a madman who afterward. wild eyed and irration- al. cried out in his cell that he heard the voices of little children calling and proclaimed that he had but acted as an agent of Providence"
 After his speech Mir. Littleton was asked him what manner he would at- tempt to prove Thaw sane at the pres ent time if he offered such an aceum- ulation of evidence as to progressive insanity up to the time of the killing.
 T can only say that I will cross my bridges as l come to them. A man can't ride two horses going in oppo- site directions at the same time." he replied,
 The outline of the defence was gen. srally considered as rehectipE a de-