Omaha daily bee., 1909-08-28
CRABTREE IS FOUND GUILTY
Corporal Who Killed Captain Has
Only to Hear His Sentence.
COURT IS FIXING THAT NOW
Proceeding Pursued by the Court
Martial is the Evidence that
Verdict of Guilty Has Been
Agreed Upon.

HAS the Judge advocate anything fur
ther to offer"
These words spoken by the president Of
the general court martial yesterday noon
at Fort Crook showed that the fate of Prl-
vate Lisle d. Crabtree had been sealed
and that the court had found him guilty
of the charges, or at least part of them
II is the custom with military courts. after
coming to a finding, II the charges have
been sustained, to again open the court
to receive evidence of previous convictions
by military courts to aid the court in fix
ing tn penalty. That the Crabtree court
martial did this Bne ws that at least one
OF thI charges was sustained by the evil
dence to a sufficient extent to warrant a
conviction and as the fight has been made
solely on the shooting of Captain Ray
mond, it is to be supposed that Crabtree
was convicted of this charge. All the
charges are dependent upon each other
that a conviction of one would mean a
conviction of all three, that Is Of the ad-
ditional charges of assaulting Sergeant
washburn and Corporal Such with re-
volver at the time of the killing of Cap
tain Raymond.
At the opening Of court yesterday morn
ing Captain Buchan, .he judge advocate,
stated that the government would rest Its
case and not call Major Brattan as he had
intimated the day previous. Judge j. NJ.
Parsons at once began his plea for the
accused. He said that this case was new
experience to him and that 1t was his first
criminal case in which he had not asked
the court to discharge the accused He
realized that there could be only one Of
three outcomes to the case, That the
.a1N
would imprson the accused, possibly for
life, or would sentence him to be confined
in all asylum for the criminal insane. He
said it was clear to his mind that a man
who would commit this crime was morally
irresponsible and insane. He did not feel
that he could ask the freedom of Crabtree
and would not free him if he could He
ended by saying that the accused had had
an absolutely fair and impartial trial.
sanity Only Issue.
The Judge advocate outlined the law Of
the case briefly and called attention to
the facts in connection with the article Of
war under which accused was tried, the
twenty-first. He said the first thing for
the court to determine was as TO whether
the accused was sane, that is whether or
not he had sufficient use of his faculties
on that fateful Sunday to know what he
was doing. There had been no dispute as
to the facts alleged by the government,
except that of the sanity of Crabtree
Captain Buchan finished at IL o'clock
and the court took the case under advise
mont. At a quarter after i2 the court
called for the evidence of previous con-
victions and the judge advocate offered
in evidence one minor court offense.
Crabtree had been tried and fined SO in
May, 1909, by a summary court for al
lowing his gun to go off prematurely at
the target range, through carelessness
The court then took a recess and met
again at 1880 After being in session a
few minutes the court finally adjourned
having awarded a sentence. While nothing
can be known definitely until the review
ing authority passes upon the case finally
it is likely that the accused was given the