Case Name: From the New York Herald
Court: New York Court of Oyer and Terminer
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1851-09-27
Citations: 2 Edm. Sel. Cas. 249
Docket Number: 
Parties: From the New York Herald
Judges: 
Reporter: Edmond's Select Cases
Volume: 2
Pages: 249–252

Head Matter:
From the New York Herald
NEW YORK OYER AND TERMINER
Sept. 27, 1851.
Before Edmonds, Justice, and two aldermen. Justices Mitchell and King were also on the bench.
The prisoner was put to the bar for sentence, with three others convicted of homicide.
The district attorney rose and said: In the case of Michael Mulvey, it is my painful duty also to move the judgment of the court.
The prisoner, on being asked by the clerk what he had to say why sentence of death should not be passed upon him, replied: “I am so disturbed in mind I cannot speak; I call on my counsel to make a statement of the facts.”
Mr. A. A. Phillips then rose and said, that expecting that Mr. H. F. Clark, the- senior counsel, would have been in court, he (ME P.) had been able to have but a short consultation with the prisoner prior to his being arraigned for sentence. At the request of the prisoner, said Mr. Phillips, I desire to state, that on the night in question, Mulvey, in company with Delia Dennison, a young woman to whom he had been paying attention, and also in company with another lady, had passed the evening in Thirteenth street. On his return, he had escorted the ladies to their residence in Mulberry street, and, wishing some refreshment, passed through Mulberry street to Chatham, on his way home to Cross street, knowing that the house kept by Reickert was open all night. At the steps of the saloon he met the two men mentioned on the trial, who asked him to treat them, which he refused. The two men passed into the saloon, Mulvey remaining back for a few moments, and then followed. On arriving at the counter the men addressed him; one of them called him a mean fellow, as he had promised to treat them and then would not. This was repudiated by Mulvey, upon which one of the men advanced toward him and was pushed back by the prisoner. Upon this he was immediately seized, both by Reickert and the barkeeper, and thrown violently upon the floor. It was proved, upon the trial, that the prisoner was suffering from a felon on his left hand. Upon being thrown on the floor his hand was hurt. Suffering from the pain, and being kicked both by the barkeeper and Reicker, he rolled himself toward, the door and sprang up the steps; on going up the steps, believing that he was followed by the barkeeper, he drew the pistol, but did not look behind him, and it went off, without any intention on Ms part to fire at any one. The prisoner desired to take this, probably the last, opportunity of publicly repudiating the idea that he carried concealed weapons for any other purpose than Ms own protection. As was shown upon the trial, a young woman from whom he had withdrawn his intentions, hearing that he had bestowed them upon Delia, had stabbed him in the region of the heart, at City Hall Place, from, the effects of which wound he was confined in the hospital for some time; and after his discharge, both in person and by letter, she threatened to renew her attack and take his life. For the purpose of his own preservation, and deterring her, he informed her that he would arm himself; and he borrowed the pistol from a young shop-mate, whom he had endeavored to produce on the trial, but he had unfortunately left for the South. Mulvey’s greatest desire to live is for the sake of his widowed mother and her four younger children, of whom he had been the sole support for the past nine years; and in consideration of their helplessness, he trusted that all the leniency in the power of the court to grant, or their recommendation to the executive could effect, would be extended toward him.

Opinion:
SENTENCE OE DEATH UPON MICHAEL MULVEY.
The Judge, addressing Mulvey, said: You, also, have been convicted of the crime of murder, and are also now to be sentenced to expiate your crime on the gallows. The jury have recommended you to mercy, and I shall transmit them recommendation to the governor. With him alone, from the moment when we shall pronounce final judgment upon you, rests the power to interfere with your execution, and it is in his breast alone to say whether your punishment shall be changed, or in any manner, and to what extent, modified. Although from that recommendation you may entertain a reasonable hope that your life will be spared, and that you will not now perish miserably on the scaffold, yet you can have no hope that you can escape a long, and perhaps a perpetual, imprisonment for the crime you have committed. Whatever may be the result in that respect, behold the enduring ruin you have brought upon yourself and all connected with you. Upon yourself you have brought either an ignominious death on the gallows, or imprisonment for the best part of your life. Upon your mother and young sisters you have brought irretrievable disgrace, and withdrawn from them the only protector and support they had. All this you owe to your criminal indulgence in the pernicious hahit of carrying concealed weapons and using intoxicating drinks. Had you been perfectly sober, the blood that is now upon your soul would never have stained it. Had you been unarmed, the homicide for which you are now answerable, would have been avoided. I do not allude to these things to reproach you. God forbid that I should add aught unnecessarily to the misfortune that now overwhelms you. But I refer to them in order to hold up your example to others, in the fervent hope that they who are about entering upon the career which you thus unhappily finish, may be wise in time, and avoid the practices which have caused your fall. The chief under whom you served for several years, testified to the exciting character of the occupation in which you and he were at times engaged. That occupation was 'reputable enough, and peculiarly distinguished for its disinterested labors and perils for the benefit of others. But it is in an eminent degree exciting, and, to the unregulated mind, in an equal degree dangerous. To such a one there is temptation without and excitement within, and it ought to have admonished you that, beyond all other occupations, it could least afford you indulgence in ardent spirits, or carrying concealed weapons. All similarly occupied as you have been must now be warned by your fate. They behold what ruin has been brought upon you by your inability to withstand the temptations which surrounded you, and they see with what inflexible justice your merited punishment has been meted out to you. And all must be aware that the peace and good order of society demand that mischief shall haunt the violent man. For you the door of repentance is yet open, and it is not too late for you, by humbling yourself in unfeigned sorrow, to lift from your soul the load of, blood which may otherwise weigh it down forever. The sentence of the court is, that on Friday, the twenty-first day of bTovember next, you be hung by the neck until you be dead.' May Heaven have mercy upon you!
The sheriff took his position beside the prisoner, and the reading of the death warrant and the same forms were gone through.
The countenance of the- prisoner brightened up, and' there was a smile of gladness on the face of his sister, when it was heard from the lips of the judge that he might entertain a reasonable hope that his life would be spared.