New Britain herald., 1914-04-17
BERCERON APPEAL
 IN SUPREME COURT
Counsel for Condemned Murderer
 FiQht to Save His Life.

Ilyll u MvG [NS LlIG. CLAIM JUDGE BURPEE ERRED Brief for Accused Sets Forth That at
 the Time of the Killing of Mrs.
 Dowsett He Was in State of
 Acute Alcoholic Intoxication.
 Bridgeport, Conn.,, April 1.-The supreme court today listened to argu- ments in the case of the state vs. Joseph F. Bergeron. The counsel for Bergeron, indicted for murder of Elizabeth Dowsett, at New Haven on May 26, 1913, and found guilty by Judge Burpee in the first degree, were Joseph G. Woods and J. Birney Futile. In the brief for the accused it was set forth that the degree of crime, under the statute and after a plea of guilty, was left to the deter imitation of the court. We believe" says the brief, "that this was the first time this statute has ever been in voked and while therefore experi- mental there were weighty reasons which induced counsel for the accused to assent to his choice of tribunals.
 Accused Claims Intoxication.
 The accused claimed that at the time of the homicide he was in 8 state of acute alcoholic intoxication and therefore incapable of murder in the first degree. Establishment of his mental condition would, in large measure, depend upon the scientific testimony of experts and it seemed to counsel that the trained and learned judge was better fitted to try this question than the ordinary jury un- learned, untrained and incapable of scientific understanding.
 ''It was also the intention of the accused to save the state the great expense of jury trial.
 "The experiment which perhaps ought not to have been tried, seemed more than justified. The result was to deprive the accused of the safe guard of twelve concurring intellectual personalities. While the evidence con- vinced the one intellectual personality that goes to make up thetrial jurge, 1t is certain that one or more of the twelve personalities making up jury would have been differently affected by the same evidence.
 .The accused ought not to be hanged if there is anything in the evidence which would affect with a reasonable doubt any one of the twelve varie- gated personalities which might have made up the jury"
 Evidence Leaves Doubt.
 The brief sets up that 'theevidence leaves a reasonable doubt as to Ber- geron's mental condition that it ought to hay left doubt in the mind Of the trial court; that it would have left a doubt in the minds of thetWelve dl1- fering intellectualities making up a jury.
 The accused claimed that his crime was no greater than murder In the second degree by reason or the fact that at the time he was in a state of acute alcoholic intoxicatlon ana in- capable of premeditation,, deliberation or mAlice5 afpreth ought that no ade- quate, riotivet for the crime existed and no express malice toward the victim existed or was proven. Ser geron, it was claimed had been kind and considerate husband, and father of four children, until in 1909 he met Elizabeth Dowsett. In November, 1911. he acted strangely so that his wife thought The was going insane"
 Condition Was Delirious.
 Reciting the events leading up to the homicide the brief says that on the Saturday night prior to the aqt the accused was so drunk that he seemed to a physician to be on the verge of delirium tremens. On the morning of the homicide it was shown in evidence that Bergeron was drunk and in the same extremely delirious condition from use of liquor as he had been for some days. The rec ord discloses the absence of a motive for the woman he loved, This all' as the state characterized that relation.
 Our contention" says the brief, "that there was no intention to in- jure the woman up to Tuesday night was so impressive that the state was forced to develop a new theory, name ly, that Lizzie Dowsett finally dis missed the accused on Tuesday night
 Passion Inflamed Mind.
 Reviewing the. record of the case at this point the accused then claims this: 'The truth is that up to the time Bergeron went to bed intoxicated on Tuesday night, he had newer had any intention to injure Mrs. Dowsett. It was in his room that the seeds of murder were first sown; his drunken mind was there inflamed with pas- sion and the scene set for the awful tragedy
 In concluding the brief the accused sets up that he was, as a result of antecedent conditions, under the in- fluence of a moral mania. Also that there is little controversy about the law.
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