The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-12-01
15,OOO-WORD QUERY ID WITNESS WAS NOT SAT|SFAC
District Attorney, Prose. cutting Mrs. De Saulles, Wanted Question Put"
 Another Way

| ~ sIineoIa, N. Y.. November sO.--An- other mass of expert testianony was added today to the volume of evidence already introduced in support of Mrs Blanca De Saullcs' cIaim that she did not know what she was doing when she shot her divorced husband, John l.. De Sauiles. in his Long Island home the nght of August 3. The de- fcnse rested nt 2.3O o'clock in the aft ernoon.
 1 Because District Attorney Weeks did not like the phrasing of a 15,O0O- word hypothetical question put to alienists by attorneys for the defense he is preparing similar interroga : tion of equal or greater strength, which experts on diseases of the mind called by the prosecution will be asked to answer tomorrow
 Weeks insisted the question sub- mitted by thesdefense was based en- tirely on testimony favorable to Mrs De Saulles and Justice Manning in : structed the district attorney to frame another query including the testimony he deems most favorable to his side of the case.
 It required an hour and half to read the question prepared by the de- fense. Discussion of its points occu- pied two hours. It seemed probable to |. night that the submission of evidence in rebuttal would not be finished be- fofs tomorrow night.
 WEEKS BEGINS ATTACK When attorneys for the defense rested their case District Attorney Weeks immediately began an attack on the validity of their claim that Mrs. De Saulles suffered 10-day "blank space," or lapse of memory which began few moments prior to the time she fired the revolver shots and ending when she awoke as pris- oner in the Nassau county jail on Au- gust II.
 Through Roentgen ray photogra phs Weeks sought to show that the depres- sion of a part of one of Mrs. De Saulles' skull bones was merely the area commonly known as the .'baby spot" and did not mark a fracture, as maintained by the defense. Henry A. Uterhart declares his client suf- fered 8 fractured skull in an acci- dent when child, which left. a bit of bone pressing upon the frontal lobes of the brain. This alleged brain pressure is one of the bulwarks of the defense
 "vIEW" OF ALIENISTS
 By answering in the negative each of the three parts of uterharts hypo- tlAfiC1l nr TAI fife, widely known alienist. and Dr. J. sherman Wight, who has attended Mrs. De Saulles since her arrest swore it was their belief the defendant Was not mentally sound" "did not know the nature and quality of the act'' and did not know that 1t was wrong"
 Each of the witnesses said it was ms opinion that hypothyreosis dis < ease of the thyroid gland, was d fac- tor in producing the defendants pur- ported loss of accountability. In addi ton they testified that in considera- ton of other causes affecting her mind at the time, the brain pressure due to the skull fracture would not have been necessary to bring about this temporary mental derangement
 District Attorney Weeks sought to bring from Dr. Jeliffe an admission that Mrs. De Saulles' apparently ra- tional actions immediately after the shooting contradlcted her own claim that she was Irresponsible when shc fired the shots. Dr. Jeliffe declared 1t was very possible" for her to be In a subconscious state that made such seemingly paradoxical conduct zen tirely consistent with her temporary insanity. Dr. Islam Harris, Charles w. Pilgrim and George II. Kirby are med- teal men to whom the district attor- |ney's hypothetical question will be submitted tomorrow. It lis believed the trial may reach tho jury Monday.