The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-01-14
ThaWs Brilliant Attorney PrD- Sents Case In New
 Form Entirely
JEROME IS SURPRISED
 BY FACTS ANNOUNCER
Martin Littleton Declares That Thaw Was Insane For Years Before the Killing, and Will Bring Tn
 Many New Witnesses.

Many New Witnesses.
 New York. January 13.-The Thaw trial moved with a rush today After the state 1 had presented it's direct case and Assist ant District Attorney Garvan had char
 aeterized the killing of Stanford White i as "a premedtated, deliberate and cow l ardly murder" Martin w Idttleton for the defense, made the opening plea for the prisoner. His promise of new evidence was sensational and held the attention of l all in the court room. District Attorney
 Jerome, seemingly taken by surprise, was
 himself in the witness chair to better 1 hear the outline of the defense. MT. | Gittleton promised to forge a chain of
 circumstances and produce a line of testi-
 mony which will prove Harry K. Thaw | undeniably insane at the time of the | homicide. Evidence of hereditary insan-
 ity 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 at
 tended Thaw were hurrying here from | Europe that teachers of the defendant
 in childhood would be on hand to give
 their impressions of "the wide-eyed. dis
 tant boy"
 In conclusion Mr. Littleton challenged
 the district attorney to produce sin gle reputable physician who would say
 that Thaw was not insane at the time
 he killed the noted architect
 Mir. Idttleton's speech fairly bristled
 with surprises. He startled the court
 room by declaring that after Evelyn
 Neshlt had told him her story in Paris
 in 1903 Thaw "drenched himself with
 poison and would have died but for the
 work of three physicians who labored
 over him all of one night
 Jerome Objects.
 MT. Jerome had his surprises to cffer,
 too, and when MT. Littleton started to
 launch into the relations of Stanford
 White with the girl whom Thaw mar
 ried the district attorney was on his
 feeet with an objection. Justice Bowling
 sustained the objection and the name of
 the architect was not linked again with that of the defendants wife. MT. Little-
 ton touched but lightly upon the girls
 story as she told 1t to Thaw. but as he
 was on this point he again drew an ob- jectIon from the prosecuting officer, who
 said:
 "Mr Llttleton is now strayng into a
 field of stuff which, in my opinion, will | be excluded Again Justice Bowling sus-
 tained the objection. It was reported at
 the beginning of the trial that MT. Je-
 rome would fight this year to exclude | the testimony of young Mrs. Thaw. Mir Litteton spared neither Thaw nor his family in the recital of the defendants ' life history. During the speech Thaw sat wide-eyed and pallid. looking fxedly at his counsel. Toward the close he 1 seemed rather displeased with something l that was said and leaning forward scrib- bled off a note.
 1 MT. Littleton's speech was somewhat dramatic and impassioned at times and keenly followed by the jury, despite the rather frequent objections from the dis trict attorney, who decried the flights Of oratory as having no place in an opening statement of fact
 Tainted Ancestry. l Thaw's ancestry marked by dreaded l taints of insanity, on both the fathers 1 and mothers side, according to his chief counsel, was drawn with great care and the defendant himself pictured 1 as lTFdllDldl lISdHt dS eh po9 Nho V7SAi- lated between "starship and madness, be- tween brilliance and darkness fought unayailingly against the fever of insan- ity which coursed in his blood at birth. q make no claims for this defendant above those of the average man as to 1 morals. vices or virtues,' declared MT 1 Littleton. But I say his life history Is 1 enough to free him froniSthe charge that I I.f to his history the heart breaking episode of his love for the young woman who became his wife and of her recital to him l of story which flashed to the four quar- i ters of the globe, made all the world l that reads stand st.il and wonder, and 1 I shall have no hestancy in asking you. l If you have not reasonable doubt as to | whether he was sane the night of the | deplorable tragedy; and upon that doubt l l shall ask you for a verdict of not | guilty
 | MT I.ittleton told of trip abroad taken l by Thaw in 1S99 when he was ill and l insane at Rome, Monte Carlo and Lon l don being under the care of physl- l clans and nurses at each place and declar- l ing he would produce these physicians 1 and nurses as far as possible to tell l their stories.
 l Diaries of Teachers. 1 Teachers who kept diaries about the l strange child who sat in their classes 1 also will come to tell the Jury about tho 1 early life and tendencies of the defend- 1 ant Describing the killing of White, MT. Littleton said;
 ..Thaws madness. born and bred in him. l had been set on fire by the stories he 1 had heard. He had gone to the district ! attorney with them and to MT. Comstock. l They ran In his head until staggering 1 among the chairs of Madison Square | Garden, yet not drunk, his eyes burning | like two coals of fire. unable intelligently | to answer questions put to him, maniacal 1 in the last degree: lost. lost as he was l In Rome. In Monte Carlo and in London, the blind confusion of insanity overcame 1 him and he fired. The result was not l murder. but the act of madman who 1 afterward. wild-eved and irrational cried