New Britain herald., 1914-04-02
NEW EVIDENCE READY FOR CHARLTON TRIAL
Counsel VII Attempt to Prove Ac-
 CuSed Was Slave of Victim.

Como, Italy, April 2.-Porter Charl- ton, the young American, who killed his wife, Mary Scott Charlton, when they were spending their honeymoon here in June 1910, has acquired sufficient knowledge of Italian to avail himself of the privilege under the Italian law to be the first and the last to address the jurors before whom he is to be tried on the charge of mur- der
 Sympathy for the accused youth has been demonstrated frequently during his detention in the San DonnenO jail, since extra dition from the United States last August. While Charlton has been study irg the language of the country lis lawyers have been working up public opinion in his favor. The effect is apparent. Visitors to the jail are many and privileges have been granted to the prisoner by the director and keepers of the jail. His meals are served from theoutside. Good, food and daily exercise in the court yard of the palace of justice have kept him in fine health.
 It may be midsummer before the case is tried. delays being due to ex- tended investigations undertaken by both sides.
 Charltons lawyers have been get ting in touch with numerous witnesses in America. Twenty of them have been subpoenaed, and it is expected that several may appear personally before the court of AssiZes at Como to contribute their testimony as to the psychological condition of the accused.
 While the case is new in the sense that it is the first timbe an American citizen has been eXtradited and tried in Italy. it does not differ greatly from frequent here.
 Studying the terrible drama, we have become convinced and will de- monstrate," say Charleton's lawyers in a sketch of the theories they will per- sue. that an obscure and inevitable fatality presides over these awful crimes. which go from love to death, from the idyll to tragedy. by which a human life suddenly cut short by the hand of a creature who loved. and who still passionately loves, and who after the crime remains terrified, weakened, and stunned by what he has done, incapable of believing that the blood was shed by him.
 Charlton. of weak character. inex- perienced, overwhelmed by the artful attractions of Mary Scott, was cap tured by an almost pathological fas- Cination, had his conscience weakened ard enslaved and became the easy tool of incoherent and illogical eX- cesses.
 ''To prove this we have added to the documents of the trial the inter- views with pr. Procaccini major in the royal navy who travelled as royal commissioner aboard the steamer which brought Charlton from New York to Naples. Dr. Proca2cini, after having studied Charlton for about two weeks. expressed the opinion that at the time of the crime he was in a state of moral infancy and therefore in a condition of not realizing the enormity of what he had done.
 ''In the majority of cases these crimes arouse the,pity, not the severity of the jurors. If the accused is ac- quilted the reason will Ee found in sentine rtality or distortion of the human sense of justice, but rather in the conviction of the jurors that human agencies should not infiict further penalties upon the man be- fore them who having made victim of another. is himself the victim of an memorable fate.
 We shall prove before the court of Assizes that the Charlton drama is due to an alteration which upset the normal mental faculties of the ac- cused. This will clearly appear from the interrogation of witnesses. and our contention will be further supported by the testimony of Italian alienists"