Amador ledger., 1909-05-21
EMMA LEDOUX
GETS NEW TRIAL
For Murder of MCViCar.
From S. f. Call.

LlnCLlOn OF DelOg tue HIsI WOuHu
hanged by an order of court in this
state. This unusual defendant,
eoquette as girl and enchantress as
a woman, was yesterday granted a
new trial by the supreme court.
Once again mnst she face the charge
of having murdered her one time
husband, Albert N. McVioar, in
Stockton, March "a, 1906.
Associate Justice Henshaw wrote
the decision granting her new trial,
Associate Justice Lorigan and Melvin
eoncurring. Chief Justice Beatty
wrote a concurring opinion.
The grounds on which the new trial
is ordered are that Judge W. b.
Nutter, the trial Judge, did not allow
the challenge to the panel Of the jury
because of the bias OF the sheriff.
that the court refused to allow in
structions of the defense on the pre-
sumption of innocence where con-
flicting presumptions might be said
to arise, and that physicians had been
allowed to testify as experts without
properly combining their testimony to
hypothetical questions. In the ap-
peal it was not ooutended that the
evidence was insuGcien. to sustain
the verdict and judgment. the COM
plaint being entirely directed at the
rulings of Judge Nutter. 1t is said
that fully l.2O0 objections were noted
in the trial.
The decision sets forth that during
the empaneling of the jury the court
ordered a special venire of 75 The
defense challenged the venire under
section 1864 of the penal code account
of the bias and prejudice of sheriff
Sibley. The evidence showed that
the sheriff had been gathering evid-
ecne and chad thus come to enter
tain an unqualified opinion that the
defendant was guilty." So far as the
challenge for bias is concerned, the
sheriff in such case is put by the
law precisely in the position of
trial juror and state of mind which
would disqualify juror equally dis
qualities the sheriff.
In reference to certain love letters
written by the defendant to her hus-
band, Eugene LeDoux, who lived
near the home of her mother. Mrs
Mary Head. near jackson, Amador
county, it was held that while the
possession of those lett9rs was il
legally secured, the redress was not
in the exclusion of pertinent evil
denee obtained by the seizure. The
letters were, therefore, held to have
been properly admitted.
In the trial it developed that the
defendant, when she was Emma Cole,
aged 16, married Charles Barrett,
with whom she lived four years.
After divorcing him, she married
William Williams, with whom she
went to Arizona. After six years of
married life he died.. and three
months later she married McVicaI in
BIsbee. Ariz., In 1902. They after
wards separated and she went to her
mothers home near Jackson. In
August. 1905. she went with Eugene
LeDoux, who resided near her
mothers place, to Woodland, Yolo
county, where they were married by
a Justice of the peace.
The prosecution urged as a motive
for the murder that she had killed
McVicar because of her affection for
lie Doux and her desire to avoid the
exposure of her bigamous relations,
ii appearing that she had never been
divorced from McVicar. The prose-
cution introduced the license and
certificate of marriage from Bisbee
over the objection of the defense.
The opinion holds that in an effort to
prove bigamy the license aud the
certificate would not have been ad
missIble, but to prove motive for the
murder they we're.
The crime for which Mrs LeDouX
was convicted was unusual in the
annals of crime Her remarkable
eomposure from the time of the muT-
der to the present has stamped her as
a psychological phenomenon. This
woman who, at the age of 32 years,
still retained her charm of face aud
figure despite her varied life, which
took her for time to the lowest
levels, smiled gTaciously in the court
room a minute after the jury had pro-
nounced the verdict that she must
hang. During her three years in the
San Joaquin county jail she has been
It's most cheerful prisoner. She has
founH aOaiu many NJ fhaa9 aWaQf