The Lazier murder
Subtitle: Prince Edward County, 1884
By: Robert J. Sharpe
Publisher: University of Toronto Press; University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Toronto; Buffalo
Language: eng
Number of pages: 189
ISBN-13: 9781442644212
Subjects: Administration of Criminal justice; Murder; Trials (Murder); Meurtre; Procès, instances; Administration; Trials, litigation; Justice pénale; Procès (Meurtre); History
Description: "In December 1883, Peter Lazier was shot in the heart during a bungled robbery at a Prince Edward County farmhouse. Three local men, pleading innocence from start to finish, were arrested and charged with his murder. Two of them - Joseph Thomset and David Lowder - were sentenced to death by a jury of local citizens the following May. Nevertheless, appalled community members believed at least one of them to be innocent - even pleading with prime minister John A. Macdonald to spare them from the gallows.

The Lazier Murder explores a community's response to a crime, as well as the realization that it may have contributed to a miscarriage of justice. Robert J. Sharpe reconstructs and contextualizes the case using archival and contemporary newspaper accounts. The Lazier Murder provides an insightful look at the changing pattern of criminal justice in nineteenth-century Canada, and the enduring problem of wrongful convictions."--Pub. desc.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [161]-183) and index.