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Speaker 1: You're listening to History on Trial, a production of iHeart Podcasts.

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Speaker 1: Listener Discretion Advised. Sarah White was starting to have a

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Speaker 1: bad feeling about the man in the hat. As the

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Speaker 1: ladies waiting room matron at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad

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Speaker 1: station in Washington, d C. White was used to seeing

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Speaker 1: all sorts of strange behavior. Travel could bring out the

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Speaker 1: worst and even the most dignified citizens, but this man

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Speaker 1: seemed especially off to her. She had been watching the

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Speaker 1: man all morning, she would later recall, as he flitted

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Speaker 1: from room to room at the station. He would look

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Speaker 1: in one door and pass on to the next door

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Speaker 1: and look in again. She said, he didn't seem to

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Speaker 1: have a destination in mind or a train to board.

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Speaker 1: He just circled head down, shoulders bent, face obscured by

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Speaker 1: a dark hat. What business did he have at the

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Speaker 1: train station? In fact, this man had very important business,

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Speaker 1: a meeting of sorts. He had just arrived early because

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Speaker 1: he wanted to make sure he got everything just right.

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Speaker 1: He'd stopped and had his shoes shined. Then he'd approached

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Speaker 1: the line of taxi carriages waiting outside the station and

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Speaker 1: asked a driver about his rates. Once he'd learned the fair.

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Speaker 1: The man said he'd let the driver know in a

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Speaker 1: few minutes if he needed a ride once his business

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Speaker 1: was complete. And then the man had walked inside the

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Speaker 1: station and gone up to the newsstand counter. Could I

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Speaker 1: leave some packages with you for a few minutes, he

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Speaker 1: asked the clerk. Certainly, the clerk replied and took a

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Speaker 1: stack of letters and a book from the man. Next,

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Speaker 1: the man walked into the bathroom and pulled another package

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Speaker 1: from his pocket. He inspected the contents. Everything looked right,

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Speaker 1: everything was perfect. He was ready. Outside of the station,

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Speaker 1: another man was disembarking from his carriage. He asked a

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Speaker 1: nearby policeman, Patrick Kearney, for the time. It was nine

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Speaker 1: twenty a m. He learned his train was scheduled for

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Speaker 1: nine p thirty. In ten short minutes, the man and

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Speaker 1: two of his sons would be speeding north, escaping the

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Speaker 1: sweltering DC summer. He could hardly wait. His upcoming trip

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Speaker 1: promised him a respite from his stressful job and an

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Speaker 1: opportunity to see his beloved wife again after some time apart.

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Speaker 1: Sarah White, from her perch in the waiting room, saw

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Speaker 1: the second man enter the station and smiled. She recognized

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Speaker 1: him right away. How couldn't she? This tall bearded man

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Speaker 1: trailed by two teenage boys was President James Guardarfield. This

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Speaker 1: was who the man in the hat had been waiting for.

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Speaker 1: This was the moment he had been preparing for. Seconds

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Speaker 1: after President Garfield walked into the train station, the man

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Speaker 1: in the hat, an itinerant, ex lawyer and preacher named

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Speaker 1: Charles Guittou, reached into his pocket and pulled out a gun.

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Speaker 1: He raised his arm and shot the president twice. The

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Speaker 1: first shot hit Garfield in the arm, the second ripped

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Speaker 1: into his back. As Garfield lay bleeding on the station floor,

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Speaker 1: Geto ran for the street. He didn't get far. A

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Speaker 1: ticket agent grabbed him by the back of the neck

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Speaker 1: and called out, this is the man. Officer Patrick Kearney,

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Speaker 1: who had only just given Garfield the time, raced over

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Speaker 1: and took hold of Getto. Curney knew he had to

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Speaker 1: get the man to jail before the crowd at the

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Speaker 1: station took justice into their own hands. Already people were

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Speaker 1: shouting for Getou to be hanged on the spot. Getaux

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Speaker 1: offered no resistance to Kearney. Neither did he try to

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Speaker 1: deny what he'd done. He seemed to be proud of

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Speaker 1: his actions. The rest of the country, of course, was horrified.

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Speaker 1: Americans prayed for the president who lingered between life and

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Speaker 1: death for more than two months and cursed his assailant.

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Speaker 1: They called for Getou to be punished, to be thrown

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Speaker 1: to wild dogs, to be burned alive, to be shot

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Speaker 1: like he had shot President Garfield. No punishment seemed grave

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Speaker 1: enough for what Charles Getau had done. But after Garfield

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Speaker 1: finally died in September eighteen eighty one and the government

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Speaker 1: prepared for Getou's trial, a problem emerged. Getau, many medical

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Speaker 1: experts believed, was insane. If this was true, was he

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Speaker 1: responsible for his actions? And if he wasn't responsible, how

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Speaker 1: could the public get the closure or the vengeance that

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Speaker 1: they longed for. In the end, many wondered could the

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Speaker 1: justice system truly deliver justice in a case like this?

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Speaker 1: Welcome to History on Trial. I'm your host, Mira Hayward.

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Speaker 1: This week the United States, the Charles Guittow. No one

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Speaker 1: expected James Garfield to become the Republican presidential nominee in

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Speaker 1: eighteen eighty least of all James Garfield born in eighteen

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Speaker 1: thirty one in a log cabin in Ohio, and fatherless

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Speaker 1: before his second birthday, Garfield grew up in profound poverty.

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Speaker 1: His hard working single mother, Eliza, always stressed education, even

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Speaker 1: giving up land she could barely afford to lose to

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Speaker 1: the local community so that a schoolhouse could be built.

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Speaker 1: Young Garfield chafed against his mother's dreams for him and

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Speaker 1: left home at sixteen to work on the Erie Canal,

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Speaker 1: but after a close brush with drowning, returned home and

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Speaker 1: re committed to his education. At age twenty, he was

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Speaker 1: accepted to the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, a college preparatory school.

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Speaker 1: To pay for his education, Garfield worked as the school's

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Speaker 1: janitor and handyman, but his innate academic gifts soon came

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Speaker 1: to the notice of the administration, and in his second year,

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Speaker 1: he traded in his job of handyman for that of

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Speaker 1: assistant professor. It's all very goodwill hunting. A year later,

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Speaker 1: he was accepted to Williams College in Massachusetts, where he

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Speaker 1: graduated second in his class. He returned to the Eclectic Institute,

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Speaker 1: quickly rising in the ranks to become the schools president

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Speaker 1: by age twenty six. He also married his longtime sweetheart,

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Speaker 1: a fellow Ohio and named Lucretia Rudolph, and the two

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Speaker 1: began their family, which would eventually grow to include five

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Speaker 1: surviving children. At the same time, he studied law and

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Speaker 1: was admitted to the bar in eighteen sixty one. A

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Speaker 1: year later, Garfield was nominated to replace a state senator

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Speaker 1: who had died in office, but his burgeoning political career

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Speaker 1: was interrupted by the outbreak of the Civil War. Garfield

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Speaker 1: became a lieutenant colonel in the Union Army. He hated

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Speaker 1: the violence of war, but as a lifelong ardent abolitionist,

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Speaker 1: he was devoted to the Union cause. Though he had

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Speaker 1: no military experience, he applied his intellectual prowess to the job,

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Speaker 1: organizing a clever ruse at the Battle of Middle Creek

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Speaker 1: that convinced his Confederate opponents that they were vastly outnumbered,

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Speaker 1: despite the opposite being true. His surprise victory there made

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Speaker 1: him a war hero. Ten months later, Garfield was elected

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Speaker 1: to the House of Representatives, even though he hadn't campaigned

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Speaker 1: at all. He was reluctant to take up his seat

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Speaker 1: in Washington, believing he was of most use on the battlefield.

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Speaker 1: It was not until a year after his election that,

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Speaker 1: at the insistence of President Lincoln, he went to Congress.

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Speaker 1: Garfield would spend seventeen years in the House of Representatives,

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Speaker 1: gaining a reputation as a powerful, if occasionally long winded speaker.

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Speaker 1: It was for his speaking skills that Garfield was chosen

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Speaker 1: to introduce John Sherman at the Republican national Convention in

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Speaker 1: June eighteen eighty. A fellow Ohioan and current Secretary of

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Speaker 1: the Treasury, Sherman was a leading candidate for the Republican

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Speaker 1: presidential nomination, if anyone could be said to be a

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Speaker 1: leading candidate. At this deeply contentious convention in the summer

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Speaker 1: of eighteen eighty, the Republican Party faced a schism, divided

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Speaker 1: into two Factionsans who hated each other almost as much

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Speaker 1: as they hated the Democrats. One part of the Republican

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Speaker 1: Party was a group called the Stalwarts, supporters of the

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Speaker 1: system of political patronage known as the spoils system. In

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Speaker 1: this system, government jobs were awarded to a political party's

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Speaker 1: supporters as a way to encourage party loyalty and government unity.

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Speaker 1: The Stalwarts were led by the charismatic, controversial New York

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Speaker 1: Senator Roscoe Conkling. On the other side of the Republican

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Speaker 1: Party was a group called the half Breeds, a name

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Speaker 1: given to them by the Stalwarts, who charged that they

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Speaker 1: were only half Republican. Given this names racially offensive connotations,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to avoid using it in this episode. This

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Speaker 1: second group supported civil service reform. Instead of appointing party

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Speaker 1: loyalists to government positions, they wanted appointments to be done

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Speaker 1: on the basis of merit. James Garfield was a member

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Speaker 1: of this sect in faction, as was the man he

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Speaker 1: had come to nominate, John Sherman. The group was also

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Speaker 1: considering nominating Maine Senator James Blaine. Senator Roscoe Conkling's longtime enemy.

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Speaker 1: The Stalwarts had brought former President Ulysses S Grant as

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Speaker 1: their candidate. Everyone expected a heated battle. Garfield just wanted

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Speaker 1: to make his nominating speech and get home to his family,

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Speaker 1: but things would not be that simple. By the fifth

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Speaker 1: day of the convention, relations between the two factions were

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Speaker 1: so fraught that observers worried whether the party would even

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Speaker 1: be able to choose a nominee. Opposing politicians gave increasingly

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Speaker 1: vitriolic speeches, driving the crowd wild, and then James Garfield

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Speaker 1: rose to speak, calm and commanding. Garfield took control of

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Speaker 1: the frenzied crowd, speaking slowly and eloquently about the need

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Speaker 1: for thoughts. He reminded the crowd about the true purpose

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Speaker 1: of their work, there to find the best representative for

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Speaker 1: the Republican voters and the best candidate to serve the country.

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Speaker 1: And then returning to his own purpose, nominating John Sherman,

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Speaker 1: he asked the crowd, and now, gentlemen of the convention,

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Speaker 1: what do we want? From somewhere in the hall, a

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Speaker 1: voice cried out, we want Garfield. Garfield did not want

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Speaker 1: the job. He had long felt that running for president

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Speaker 1: was a toxic quest. I have so often seen the

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Speaker 1: evil effects of the presidential fever upon my associates and friends.

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Speaker 1: Garfield wrote in his diary in eighteen seventy nine that

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Speaker 1: I am determined it shall not seize me. So the

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Speaker 1: audience member's call caught Garfield off guard. He took a

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Speaker 1: moment before resuming his speech, and then continued on to

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Speaker 1: nominate John Sherman, to rock his applause from the crowd.

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Speaker 1: The seed planted by that lone voice crying out for

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Speaker 1: Garfield had taken root, and though Garfield repeatedly and strenuously

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Speaker 1: denied that he wanted the nomination, momentum for his candidacy

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Speaker 1: was growing. The next Monday, state delegates began to vote

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Speaker 1: for the nominee. As ballot after ballot came in without

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Speaker 1: a clear winner amongst the big three candidates of Blaine, Sherman,

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Speaker 1: and Grant, delegates began wondering if it might be better

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Speaker 1: to choose a new candidate altogether, And after his unifying

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Speaker 1: performance on Saturday, who better, some said, than James Garfield. Slowly, slowly,

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Speaker 1: more states switched their votes to Garfield, until finally, on

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Speaker 1: the thirty sixth ballot, as one reporter put it, the

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Speaker 1: stampede came. State after state pledged themselves to Garfield, giving

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Speaker 1: him a landslide victory. The man who had called the

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Speaker 1: desire to run for president a sickness, was all of

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Speaker 1: a sudden the nominee. His vice presidential candidate would be

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Speaker 1: Chester Arthur, a staun stalwart and protege of Conklings, whose

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Speaker 1: addition to the ticket was an attempt to unite the party. Garfield,

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Speaker 1: though horrified by the situation, knew that he could not

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Speaker 1: back out, not if he wanted the Republican Party to

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Speaker 1: maintain its fragile unity. But by the time Garfield won

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Speaker 1: the election in November, that unity was already crumbling. The

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Speaker 1: two factions were at each other's throats, each determined to

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Speaker 1: control the direction of the party and the work of

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Speaker 1: Garfield's administration. As he contemplated his role the night before

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Speaker 1: his March eighteen eighty one inauguration, Garfield did not sugarcoat

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Speaker 1: the challenges he faced. Tomorrow, I shall be called to

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Speaker 1: assume new responsibilities, and on the day after the broadside

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Speaker 1: of the world's wrath will strike, it will strike hard.

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Speaker 1: Garfield could not know just how precient those words would be.

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Speaker 1: Like James Garfield, Charles Getteaux had not had an easy

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Speaker 1: start to life. He was born on September eighth, eighteen

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Speaker 1: forty one, the fourth child of Jane and Luther Gettau.

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Speaker 1: Jane died shortly after Getau's seventh birthday, leaving him and

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Speaker 1: his two surviving siblings in the care of their father, Luther.

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Speaker 1: Luther Neighbors would later remark was practical in matters of

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Speaker 1: business and politics, but fanatical on the subject of religion,

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Speaker 1: even for a country in the grips of an evangelical revival,

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Speaker 1: Luther's Christian beliefs seemed extreme to those around him. Like

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Speaker 1: his father, Charles Getaux, was zealous in his faith. At eighteen,

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Speaker 1: Getou dropped out of the University of Michigan to join

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Speaker 1: a religious commune called the Oneida Community in upstate New York.

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Speaker 1: He quickly alienated his fellow members thanks to his laziness

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Speaker 1: and egotism. The commune was infamous for its policies of

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Speaker 1: free love and not monogamy, but Gaetou also found himself

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Speaker 1: disappointed romantically. The women of Oneida were so annoyed by

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Speaker 1: Getou that they nicknamed him Charles get Out. After six years,

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Speaker 1: Getou left Oneida to found a Christian newspaper called The Theocrat,

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Speaker 1: believing that he had been called by God to do so,

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Speaker 1: but quit after four months, having realized he had no

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Speaker 1: knowledge of the newspaper business. After another year at Oneida,

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Speaker 1: Geto snuck out in the middle of the night. Tired

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Speaker 1: of the rejection of the community. At loose ends, Getou

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Speaker 1: decided to become a lawyer. Law school wasn't required in

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Speaker 1: those days, and getto with only a few months experience

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Speaker 1: as a law clerk, managed to pass the bar, in

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Speaker 1: large part thanks to a sympathetic examiner. Getou was an

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Speaker 1: awful lawyer. Those who saw him in the courtroom remembered

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Speaker 1: instances where he threatened to assault jurors, rambled about theology,

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Speaker 1: and failed to even address the charges his clients faced.

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Speaker 1: Soon abandoning the law, Gettou became a traveling preacher. Nearly penniless.

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Speaker 1: He snuck onto trains without tickets, and when confronted by conductors,

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Speaker 1: would simply tell them he was quote doing God's work

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Speaker 1: and had no money for train fare. He also had

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Speaker 1: no money for lodging, but that didn't stop him from

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Speaker 1: staying in the most opulent boarding houses available and then

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Speaker 1: disappearing in the night without paying his bill. With most

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Speaker 1: of his time occupied by sneaking on to trains and

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Speaker 1: out of boarding houses, he didn't have much time to preach,

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Speaker 1: and when he did get the chance, not much aptitude

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Speaker 1: for it either. After he gave a lecture called is

241
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Speaker 1: There a Hell? In Newark, New Jersey, the Newark Daily

242
00:17:04,280 --> 00:17:07,400
Speaker 1: Journal ran a review of it headlined is there a Hell?

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Speaker 1: Fifty deceived people are of the opinion there ought to be.

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Speaker 1: People who met geto found him erratic, egotistical, and excitable.

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Speaker 1: He could sound rational, but only if you didn't listen

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Speaker 1: too closely. As a psychiatrist who later examined him would

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Speaker 1: say of Getto's speaking style, all of the links in

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Speaker 1: the chain are there, but they are not joined, each

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Speaker 1: one good and strong of itself, but without relation to

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Speaker 1: any other. He couldn't hold down a job or stay

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Speaker 1: in one place for long. He alienated everyone he knew

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Speaker 1: with his constant demands for money. He even lost almost

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Speaker 1: all of his family support. His father Luther, in an

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Speaker 1: eighteen seventy five letter to Gaetou's older brother John, wrote

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Speaker 1: that Getou was quote capable of any folly, so stupidity

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00:18:00,800 --> 00:18:04,879
Speaker 1: or rascality. The only possible excuse I can render for

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Speaker 1: him is that he is absolutely insane and is hardly

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Speaker 1: responsible for his acts. The only person still willing to

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Speaker 1: put up with Getoau was his older sister, Francis Scoville,

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Speaker 1: but her support nearly had deadly consequences. In the summer

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Speaker 1: of eighteen seventy five, when Getoaux was staying with Francis

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Speaker 1: and her husband George in Wisconsin, he threatened to attack

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Speaker 1: his sister with an axe. Terrified, Francis asked her physician

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Speaker 1: to examine Getteaux and determine if he should be institutionalized.

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Speaker 1: After speaking with Getau, the doctor told Francis to get

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Speaker 1: her brother to an asylum without delay. Before she could, though,

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00:18:47,520 --> 00:18:52,560
Speaker 1: Getou ran away and resumed his itinerant lifestyle. It wasn't

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Speaker 1: long before a new obsession began to shape Getau's life. Politics.

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Speaker 1: He was a staunch Republican and a particular fan of

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Speaker 1: President Grant and Senator Conkling, two members of the Stalwart Faction.

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Speaker 1: As the election of eighteen eighty approached, Getoau began thinking

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Speaker 1: of ways he could get close to Republican politicians and

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Speaker 1: secure himself a place in the next administration. Ignoring the

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Speaker 1: fact that he had no relevant experience, Getou was convinced

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Speaker 1: that the Republicans would be lucky to have him. During

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Speaker 1: the election, Getou became a familiar figure around the Republican

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Speaker 1: party headquarters in New York, a slight, shabbily dressed figure

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Speaker 1: with the unnerving ability to walk so quietly that you

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Speaker 1: didn't know he was there until he stood right next

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Speaker 1: to you. His presence was tolerated, if not appreciated, by

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Speaker 1: party officials. Chester Arthur even let Geteau make a speech once. This,

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Speaker 1: like all of his other public speaking attempts, was a

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Speaker 1: complete disaster, as Kendice Mallar describes it in her book

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Speaker 1: on Garfield and Getteau, Destiny of the Republic quote. Geteau

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00:20:02,760 --> 00:20:06,439
Speaker 1: had spoken for only a few minutes, explaining later that

286
00:20:06,520 --> 00:20:09,240
Speaker 1: it was too hot, he didn't like the torchlights, and

287
00:20:09,359 --> 00:20:13,000
Speaker 1: there were plenty of other speakers waiting to talk. Despite

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Speaker 1: his objectively abysmal performance, Getou was, Millard, writes, convinced that

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00:20:18,920 --> 00:20:21,360
Speaker 1: the speech he gave at night had played a pivotal

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00:20:21,480 --> 00:20:24,240
Speaker 1: role in putting Garfield in the White House, and that

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00:20:24,280 --> 00:20:27,560
Speaker 1: it should certainly guarantee him a position of prominence in

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Speaker 1: the administration. After Garfield's inauguration in March eighteen eighty one,

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Speaker 1: Getoau moved to Washington, d C. To join the ranks

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Speaker 1: of office seekers. In those days, anyone hoping for a

295
00:20:40,800 --> 00:20:45,000
Speaker 1: federal appointment would simply show up to their prospective employer's headquarters,

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Speaker 1: be it the Post Office or the White House, and

297
00:20:48,800 --> 00:20:51,160
Speaker 1: wait in line for a chance to speak with the boss.

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Speaker 1: This was an exhausting process for candidate and employer alike.

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Speaker 1: Garfield complained that almost all of his time was taken

300
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Speaker 1: up by seeking with office seekers, most of whom were

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Speaker 1: completely unqualified, including the completely unqualified Charles Getteau, who told

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00:21:09,400 --> 00:21:11,760
Speaker 1: everyone that he met that he wanted to be assigned

303
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Speaker 1: to the American consulate in Paris. No, he did not

304
00:21:15,760 --> 00:21:19,480
Speaker 1: speak French, but that didn't deter him. His loyalty to

305
00:21:19,520 --> 00:21:22,639
Speaker 1: the Republican Party and what he saw as the crucial

306
00:21:22,720 --> 00:21:25,360
Speaker 1: role he had played in the election should be enough

307
00:21:25,400 --> 00:21:28,840
Speaker 1: to secure him the job, he thought. Not everyone agreed.

308
00:21:29,520 --> 00:21:33,679
Speaker 1: The Secretary of State James Blaine, got so sick of

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Speaker 1: Getou appearing in his office that he eventually snapped, telling

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Speaker 1: Getou he had quote no prospect whatever of receiving the

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Speaker 1: job and to quote never speak to me about the

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Speaker 1: Paris consulship. Again. Garfield was similarly dismissive of Getou's prospects.

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Speaker 1: He described a letter of Getau's as a quote illustration

314
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Speaker 1: of unparalleled audacity and impudence. But Guetto did not know that.

315
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Speaker 1: He thought he had a champion in the president. But

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Speaker 1: that all changed in May eighteen eighty one, when a

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Speaker 1: dramatic chain of events took the Republican intra party war

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Speaker 1: to the next level. Senator Roscoe Conkling, the leader of

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Speaker 1: the Stalwarts, had been making Garfield's life in office difficult,

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Speaker 1: and the two men were engaged in a ferocious public

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Speaker 1: battle over the New York Customs House. As the principal

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Speaker 1: port of entry for the United States, the New York

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Speaker 1: Customs House managed enormous sums of money in customs duties,

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Speaker 1: and the appointment to run the Customs House was considered

325
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Speaker 1: one of the most prestigious and lucrative positions in the country.

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Speaker 1: For years, Conkling, as the Senator for New York, had

327
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Speaker 1: essentially controlled who got the post. But Garfield wanted Conkling

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Speaker 1: to know that those days were over, and so he

329
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Speaker 1: nominated Judge William Robertson, a politic call, enemy of Conklings,

330
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Speaker 1: to the post. Conkling was enraged. He and fellow New

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Speaker 1: York Senator Thomas Platt concocted an audacious plan in response

332
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Speaker 1: to Garfield's move. They would resign from the Senate right

333
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Speaker 1: before the vote to confirm Robinson. Then, having avoided the

334
00:23:20,359 --> 00:23:23,800
Speaker 1: vote and rebuked Garfield, they would return to the Senate.

335
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Speaker 1: How while in those days, state legislatures chose senators, and

336
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Speaker 1: Conkling was confident that the New York State Legislature would

337
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Speaker 1: stand with him. On May sixteenth, Conkling and Platt resigned,

338
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Speaker 1: but in his fury Conkling had made a deadly political miscalculation.

339
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Speaker 1: The New York State Legislature, sick of Conkling's antics, did

340
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Speaker 1: not reinstate him or Platt. Conkling was finished. Besides Conkling,

341
00:24:01,800 --> 00:24:04,159
Speaker 1: no man was more deeply hurt by this turn of

342
00:24:04,240 --> 00:24:09,320
Speaker 1: events than Charles Guettou. He had long idolized Conkling, and

343
00:24:09,400 --> 00:24:12,640
Speaker 1: he was baffled and distraught at what he saw as

344
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Speaker 1: Garfield's betrayal of the Republican Party, not to mention the

345
00:24:16,880 --> 00:24:21,479
Speaker 1: personal betrayal. After months of petitioning, Geto still hadn't received

346
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Speaker 1: a posting to the consulate in Paris. For days after

347
00:24:25,119 --> 00:24:31,320
Speaker 1: Conkling's resignation, Geteau stewed he had come to Washington confident

348
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Speaker 1: in both his own prospects and the prospects of the country,

349
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Speaker 1: but everything was falling apart. His clothes were fraying, he

350
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Speaker 1: could barely afford to eat, and his creditors were hounding him.

351
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Speaker 1: What could he do, how could he fix this? On

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Speaker 1: the night of May eighteenth, inspirations struck divine inspiration, Geteau

353
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Speaker 1: would say a message straight from God. Quote. If the

354
00:25:00,920 --> 00:25:05,080
Speaker 1: President was out of the way, everything would be better.

355
00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:10,920
Speaker 1: With Garfield gone, Vice President Chester Arthur, an accolyte of Conkling,

356
00:25:11,080 --> 00:25:14,960
Speaker 1: would take control, and the new President Arthur would not

357
00:25:15,080 --> 00:25:18,160
Speaker 1: be able to deny who had gotten him there none

358
00:25:18,240 --> 00:25:22,560
Speaker 1: other than the brave Charles Getou. But could he really

359
00:25:22,680 --> 00:25:28,080
Speaker 1: kill the president? The idea horrified him. Geto recalled, but

360
00:25:28,960 --> 00:25:33,560
Speaker 1: quote it kept growing upon me, pressing me, goading me.

361
00:25:34,359 --> 00:25:37,960
Speaker 1: For the rest of May he fought a ceaseless internal battle,

362
00:25:38,600 --> 00:25:43,320
Speaker 1: But on June first, he came to a resolution. James

363
00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:49,320
Speaker 1: Garfield must die. With his mind made up, Gettou set

364
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Speaker 1: to work. He borrowed money from a friend, saying it

365
00:25:52,880 --> 00:25:55,439
Speaker 1: was to cover his housing bill, but instead using the

366
00:25:55,480 --> 00:25:59,640
Speaker 1: fifteen dollars to buy an ivory handled revolver. He went

367
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Speaker 1: to look the facilities at the Washington d c. Jail

368
00:26:02,840 --> 00:26:05,960
Speaker 1: to make sure he could tolerate a confinement there. Seven

369
00:26:06,040 --> 00:26:09,040
Speaker 1: years earlier, Geteau had spent a month in the tombs

370
00:26:09,440 --> 00:26:13,119
Speaker 1: the notoriously filthy Manhattan jail for non payment of rent

371
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Speaker 1: and felt he could not survive another experience like that.

372
00:26:16,960 --> 00:26:19,160
Speaker 1: But he found the DC jail to be much more

373
00:26:19,200 --> 00:26:23,119
Speaker 1: to his liking. He began to follow the president around town,

374
00:26:23,960 --> 00:26:27,720
Speaker 1: hoping to determine the best place to make his move. Garfield,

375
00:26:28,080 --> 00:26:31,280
Speaker 1: like all the presidents before him, traveled through the country

376
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Speaker 1: unaccompanied by security. Getou also prepared for the celebrity he

377
00:26:36,640 --> 00:26:41,600
Speaker 1: believed the assassination would guarantee him. Years earlier, Getou had

378
00:26:41,600 --> 00:26:44,960
Speaker 1: written a book called The Truth, a Companion to the Bible,

379
00:26:45,520 --> 00:26:48,400
Speaker 1: which had failed to find a publisher, in large part

380
00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:52,159
Speaker 1: because it was a blatant, sloppily executed plagiarism of a

381
00:26:52,160 --> 00:26:55,280
Speaker 1: book by the founder of the Oneida community. But Getou

382
00:26:55,320 --> 00:26:58,040
Speaker 1: felt confident that his soon to be fame would have

383
00:26:58,119 --> 00:27:01,439
Speaker 1: publishers in knocking at his door, so he re edited

384
00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:05,560
Speaker 1: the manuscript. Getting The Truth published was not just a

385
00:27:05,680 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 1: side effect of the assassination. In Getou's view, it was

386
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:13,200
Speaker 1: one of the main motivations. Two points will be accomplished

387
00:27:13,200 --> 00:27:17,000
Speaker 1: by the assassination, Getou wrote, It will save the republic

388
00:27:17,200 --> 00:27:20,280
Speaker 1: and create a demand for my book, The Truth. This

389
00:27:20,320 --> 00:27:23,080
Speaker 1: book was not written for money. It was written to

390
00:27:23,160 --> 00:27:27,520
Speaker 1: save souls in order to attract public attention. The book

391
00:27:27,640 --> 00:27:31,520
Speaker 1: needs the notice the President's removal will give it. With

392
00:27:31,640 --> 00:27:37,160
Speaker 1: everything in order, Getoau made his final preparations. On June twelfth,

393
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:40,320
Speaker 1: he went to Garfield's church and thought about shooting him there,

394
00:27:41,119 --> 00:27:43,560
Speaker 1: but he ended up getting distracted by the sermon and

395
00:27:43,640 --> 00:27:47,480
Speaker 1: missed his opportunity. On June eighteenth, he trailed the President

396
00:27:47,480 --> 00:27:50,560
Speaker 1: and the First Lady to the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad station,

397
00:27:51,080 --> 00:27:53,320
Speaker 1: where they planned to board a train to New Jersey.

398
00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:57,720
Speaker 1: Lucretia Garfield was recovering from a week's long illness, and

399
00:27:57,840 --> 00:28:01,439
Speaker 1: doctors hope the sier would strengthen her. It was only

400
00:28:01,480 --> 00:28:04,480
Speaker 1: the sight of her frail form that stopped Getou from

401
00:28:04,480 --> 00:28:07,960
Speaker 1: shooting Garfield that day. She clung so tenderly to the

402
00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:10,399
Speaker 1: President's arm that I did not have the heart to

403
00:28:10,440 --> 00:28:14,719
Speaker 1: fire on him, Guetto said. Garfield returned from New Jersey

404
00:28:14,760 --> 00:28:18,280
Speaker 1: on June twenty seventh to meet with his cabinet. Getou

405
00:28:18,520 --> 00:28:20,720
Speaker 1: lurked in the park across from the White House to

406
00:28:20,800 --> 00:28:23,240
Speaker 1: keep an eye on his quarry, but he would not

407
00:28:23,320 --> 00:28:27,399
Speaker 1: make his move for five more days. On July second,

408
00:28:27,520 --> 00:28:31,840
Speaker 1: when Garfield returned to the railroad station. Getou was finally ready.

409
00:28:32,600 --> 00:28:35,280
Speaker 1: He wrapped up a copy of his book and addressed

410
00:28:35,280 --> 00:28:39,760
Speaker 1: several letters to leading politicians that explained his motivations. The

411
00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:43,760
Speaker 1: President's tragic death was a sad necessity, read one letter,

412
00:28:44,320 --> 00:28:47,920
Speaker 1: But it will unite the Republican party and save the republic.

413
00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:51,800
Speaker 1: Life is a fleeting dream, and it matters little when

414
00:28:51,840 --> 00:28:55,160
Speaker 1: one goes. I presume the President was a Christian and

415
00:28:55,200 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 1: that he will be happier in Paradise than here. Getou,

416
00:28:58,880 --> 00:29:02,480
Speaker 1: dressed in his finest clothes, traveled to the station early

417
00:29:03,040 --> 00:29:06,200
Speaker 1: and deposited his letters and book with the newstand clerk.

418
00:29:06,920 --> 00:29:11,320
Speaker 1: It was time to complete his mission. An hour later,

419
00:29:11,520 --> 00:29:15,240
Speaker 1: two shots rang out and Garfield fell to the floor.

420
00:29:16,400 --> 00:29:20,720
Speaker 1: Garfield's wounds were not immediately fatal. Doctors treated him on

421
00:29:20,760 --> 00:29:23,800
Speaker 1: the second floor of the railway station before moving him

422
00:29:23,840 --> 00:29:26,240
Speaker 1: to the White House so he could recover at home.

423
00:29:26,760 --> 00:29:31,160
Speaker 1: His doctors posted medical updates regularly, which were transmitted across

424
00:29:31,200 --> 00:29:35,720
Speaker 1: the country and displayed on public billboards. Crowds gathered beneath

425
00:29:35,760 --> 00:29:39,720
Speaker 1: them to learn news of the president's condition. The horrifying

426
00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:43,160
Speaker 1: act of the attempted assassination gave the country something to

427
00:29:43,320 --> 00:29:49,280
Speaker 1: unite around North and South, Republican and Democrat. Everyone hoped

428
00:29:49,360 --> 00:30:02,080
Speaker 1: for gentle James Garfield's swift recovery. For some time, it

429
00:30:02,200 --> 00:30:05,640
Speaker 1: seemed like the President would pull through. His strength seemed

430
00:30:05,640 --> 00:30:09,640
Speaker 1: to be increasing, his color was better, his attitude, though

431
00:30:09,760 --> 00:30:14,600
Speaker 1: always courageous and hopeful, seemed improved. But by early August,

432
00:30:14,840 --> 00:30:18,120
Speaker 1: a month after the shooting, it became clear that something

433
00:30:18,240 --> 00:30:23,440
Speaker 1: was very wrong. Garfield was feverish and exhausted, losing weight

434
00:30:23,560 --> 00:30:28,680
Speaker 1: at an untenable rate. His wounds were leaking puss. By September,

435
00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:33,240
Speaker 1: those around him could not avoid the truth he was dying.

436
00:30:33,960 --> 00:30:38,920
Speaker 1: Realizing this, Garfield requested one last trip to see the ocean,

437
00:30:39,480 --> 00:30:43,760
Speaker 1: a sight which had always soothed him. On September fifth,

438
00:30:44,080 --> 00:30:47,040
Speaker 1: thousands of people came out to see the president travel

439
00:30:47,120 --> 00:30:50,440
Speaker 1: by a special train to New Jersey, where citizens had

440
00:30:50,520 --> 00:30:54,840
Speaker 1: laid down thousands of feet of track overnight to allow

441
00:30:54,880 --> 00:30:57,480
Speaker 1: Garfield to travel straight to the front door of a

442
00:30:57,520 --> 00:31:00,920
Speaker 1: seaside cottage. When the train got to the cottage, though

443
00:31:01,320 --> 00:31:05,520
Speaker 1: an unforeseen obstacle arose. The engine was not strong enough

444
00:31:05,560 --> 00:31:09,240
Speaker 1: to travel up the hill that the cottage shatowtop. Grasping

445
00:31:09,280 --> 00:31:13,880
Speaker 1: the problem, two hundred local men ran forward and silently

446
00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:18,640
Speaker 1: pushed the huge train to the front door. James Garfield

447
00:31:18,720 --> 00:31:21,440
Speaker 1: got his wish to see the ocean before he died.

448
00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:24,840
Speaker 1: He lived for nearly two weeks in that cottage by

449
00:31:24,840 --> 00:31:28,200
Speaker 1: the sea, attended by two of his lifelong best friends,

450
00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:32,920
Speaker 1: his doctors, and his wife and daughter, but his body

451
00:31:33,120 --> 00:31:36,960
Speaker 1: was failing. Late on the night of September nineteenth, he

452
00:31:37,080 --> 00:31:40,920
Speaker 1: cried out in pain, summoning his loved ones to his bedside.

453
00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:46,600
Speaker 1: Within half an hour, he was dead. All across America,

454
00:31:46,880 --> 00:31:51,320
Speaker 1: a great cloud of mourning descended. Black bunting draped the

455
00:31:51,320 --> 00:31:54,280
Speaker 1: White House, and a crowd of more than one hundred

456
00:31:54,400 --> 00:31:58,120
Speaker 1: thousand mourners gathered at the Capitol to see the president's

457
00:31:58,160 --> 00:32:02,840
Speaker 1: body lie in state. Beneath the sadness, a beating heart

458
00:32:02,880 --> 00:32:07,680
Speaker 1: of anger lay churning. Their president was dead. The American

459
00:32:07,720 --> 00:32:21,720
Speaker 1: people said, when would his assassin pay? Ever since the shooting,

460
00:32:22,240 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 1: most people had assumed that Charles Getaux would have to

461
00:32:25,400 --> 00:32:30,000
Speaker 1: be insane to have done what he'd done. Even James Garfield,

462
00:32:30,160 --> 00:32:33,200
Speaker 1: upon learning the identity of his assailant, had said that

463
00:32:33,240 --> 00:32:36,800
Speaker 1: the man must be mad, since he had no understandable motive.

464
00:32:37,440 --> 00:32:41,400
Speaker 1: To many However, Guittoau's mental state had no bearing on

465
00:32:41,440 --> 00:32:44,800
Speaker 1: the punishment he deserved. In the words of one reporter

466
00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:48,560
Speaker 1: from the New York Times, quote, while it seems incredible

467
00:32:48,640 --> 00:32:51,480
Speaker 1: that a sane man could have done so desperate and

468
00:32:51,680 --> 00:32:55,920
Speaker 1: utterly inexcusable a deed, the feeling is quite general that

469
00:32:56,000 --> 00:32:59,000
Speaker 1: it would be best to execute him first and try

470
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:04,040
Speaker 1: the question of hisanity afterward. But the lawyer's task with

471
00:33:04,160 --> 00:33:08,320
Speaker 1: running Gautou's trial could not afford such a cavalier attitude.

472
00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:12,840
Speaker 1: While there was immense public skepticism about insanity please in

473
00:33:12,880 --> 00:33:16,080
Speaker 1: which a defendant pleads not guilty by reason of insanity,

474
00:33:16,480 --> 00:33:19,400
Speaker 1: the strategy had been successfully used in a number of

475
00:33:19,520 --> 00:33:24,480
Speaker 1: high profile cases. The prosecutors were terrified that Gudteau would

476
00:33:24,560 --> 00:33:30,520
Speaker 1: escape the noose. Government authorities were too. Attorney General Wayne McVeigh,

477
00:33:30,640 --> 00:33:35,600
Speaker 1: concerned that Washington's District Attorney George Corkhill was too inexperienced

478
00:33:35,640 --> 00:33:39,720
Speaker 1: to lead the prosecution alone, recruited several prominent lawyers in

479
00:33:39,800 --> 00:33:43,840
Speaker 1: private practice to join the team, including Walter Daviage, a

480
00:33:43,920 --> 00:33:48,040
Speaker 1: highly regarded Washington lawyer, and former judge John K. Porter,

481
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:51,840
Speaker 1: who had worked on Henry Ward Beecher's defense team, which

482
00:33:51,880 --> 00:33:54,160
Speaker 1: you can hear all about in episode two of History

483
00:33:54,200 --> 00:33:58,520
Speaker 1: on Trial. Porter recommended to Corkill that they employ doctor

484
00:33:58,640 --> 00:34:02,680
Speaker 1: John Gray, superintendent of the Utica Asylum and one of

485
00:34:02,680 --> 00:34:06,920
Speaker 1: the country's foremost mental illness experts, to help guide the prosecution.

486
00:34:07,880 --> 00:34:10,520
Speaker 1: Gray agreed to come on and spent more than a

487
00:34:10,520 --> 00:34:14,040
Speaker 1: week working with Porter on identifying and recruiting the best

488
00:34:14,080 --> 00:34:18,680
Speaker 1: witnesses money could buy. The defense had no such luxury

489
00:34:18,760 --> 00:34:23,239
Speaker 1: of resources or talent. The only lawyer in the country

490
00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:26,879
Speaker 1: willing to take on Getou's defense was his brother in law,

491
00:34:27,080 --> 00:34:31,880
Speaker 1: George Scoville, and even then Scoville was not enthusiastic about

492
00:34:31,880 --> 00:34:35,680
Speaker 1: the case, announcing if I didn't think the unfortunate man

493
00:34:35,760 --> 00:34:39,480
Speaker 1: was insane, I would not defend him at all. Scoville

494
00:34:39,520 --> 00:34:42,840
Speaker 1: was barely qualified for the role. Though he had practiced

495
00:34:42,880 --> 00:34:46,160
Speaker 1: law for thirty years, he was a patent lawyer and

496
00:34:46,239 --> 00:34:51,280
Speaker 1: had only defended two prior criminal cases. At Guetou's arraignment

497
00:34:51,360 --> 00:34:55,680
Speaker 1: on October fourteenth, Scoville asked Judge Walter Cox to appoint

498
00:34:55,719 --> 00:35:00,520
Speaker 1: additional council as well as authorized subpoenas for witnesses, which

499
00:35:00,520 --> 00:35:02,600
Speaker 1: he thought was the only way to get people to

500
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:07,319
Speaker 1: come testify on Getou's behalf. Cox agreed to both requests,

501
00:35:07,760 --> 00:35:11,720
Speaker 1: and on October twenty sixth, local lawyer Lee Robinson joined

502
00:35:11,719 --> 00:35:16,080
Speaker 1: the defense team. Robinson was never happy with his role, though,

503
00:35:16,560 --> 00:35:19,080
Speaker 1: and ended up resigning from the defense a week into

504
00:35:19,080 --> 00:35:23,520
Speaker 1: the trial. Two months later, Charles Reed, the Illinois States

505
00:35:23,520 --> 00:35:27,040
Speaker 1: Attorney and a good friend of George Scoville's, joined the defense,

506
00:35:27,680 --> 00:35:33,000
Speaker 1: but for most of the trial Scoville worked alone. The

507
00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:37,520
Speaker 1: defense also had a shadow lawyer of sorts. Geteaux, a

508
00:35:37,640 --> 00:35:42,600
Speaker 1: lawyer was technically qualified to represent himself, and he insisted

509
00:35:42,680 --> 00:35:46,920
Speaker 1: on controlling every aspect of his defense. He made it

510
00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:49,600
Speaker 1: clear to Scoville that while he accepted the use of

511
00:35:49,600 --> 00:35:53,760
Speaker 1: the insanity defense, he did not want Scoville to quote

512
00:35:54,080 --> 00:35:58,400
Speaker 1: waste time proving that he was generally insane, only that

513
00:35:58,480 --> 00:36:01,120
Speaker 1: he had been insane during the mission of the crime.

514
00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:05,719
Speaker 1: Scoville knew that Gaetau's request was impossible to comply with.

515
00:36:06,440 --> 00:36:10,120
Speaker 1: Scoville's only chance of proving that Getau was not responsible

516
00:36:10,200 --> 00:36:13,360
Speaker 1: for the assassination was by proving that Getau had a

517
00:36:13,400 --> 00:36:18,840
Speaker 1: compelling history of mental illness. On October nineteenth, Scoville released

518
00:36:18,840 --> 00:36:22,400
Speaker 1: a public letter asking people who had witnessed Guittau behaving

519
00:36:22,480 --> 00:36:27,360
Speaker 1: erradically to come forward and testify. In he wrote, quote

520
00:36:27,840 --> 00:36:35,480
Speaker 1: the interests of patriotism, justice, humanity, and mercy. Despite Scoville's pushback,

521
00:36:35,600 --> 00:36:39,920
Speaker 1: Getou continued to try to run his own defense. Throughout

522
00:36:39,920 --> 00:36:42,560
Speaker 1: the first weeks of October. He tried to get Judge

523
00:36:42,600 --> 00:36:45,839
Speaker 1: Cox to accept the plea that he had written. When

524
00:36:45,960 --> 00:36:49,400
Speaker 1: Cox refused, Getou handed the plea over to the papers,

525
00:36:49,719 --> 00:36:53,480
Speaker 1: who of course published it right away. In the document,

526
00:36:53,600 --> 00:36:59,160
Speaker 1: Getoau declared himself not guilty because quote, the divine pressure

527
00:36:59,200 --> 00:37:02,680
Speaker 1: on me to remove the president was so enormous that

528
00:37:02,760 --> 00:37:06,279
Speaker 1: it destroyed my free agency, and therefore I am not

529
00:37:06,440 --> 00:37:10,279
Speaker 1: legally responsible for my act. He also claimed that he

530
00:37:10,440 --> 00:37:14,480
Speaker 1: was literally not responsible for Garfield's death. It was not

531
00:37:14,640 --> 00:37:19,000
Speaker 1: his bullets, he argued, but Garfield's bumbling doctors who had

532
00:37:19,080 --> 00:37:23,239
Speaker 1: killed the president. Finally, Getou argued that Washington b C

533
00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:26,040
Speaker 1: was the wrong venue for the trial, since Garfield had

534
00:37:26,040 --> 00:37:29,640
Speaker 1: died in New Jersey. This third claim was baseless. The

535
00:37:29,640 --> 00:37:33,680
Speaker 1: shooting had taken place in BC after all. Scoville decided

536
00:37:33,719 --> 00:37:37,440
Speaker 1: to abandon the medical malpractice argument too, but keep it

537
00:37:37,480 --> 00:37:40,640
Speaker 1: in mind, because we'll return to this surprising claim. Later,

538
00:37:41,560 --> 00:37:45,000
Speaker 1: the only focus of the defense in Scoville's mind was

539
00:37:45,080 --> 00:37:49,760
Speaker 1: proving Geto not guilty by reason of insanity. In that task,

540
00:37:50,080 --> 00:37:53,280
Speaker 1: the defense certainly had their work cut out for them.

541
00:37:53,880 --> 00:37:57,480
Speaker 1: The uphill battle the defense faced became apparent as early

542
00:37:57,600 --> 00:38:01,520
Speaker 1: as jury selection, which began on Novemas fourteenth. It was

543
00:38:01,560 --> 00:38:05,200
Speaker 1: almost impossible to find jurors who had not already made

544
00:38:05,280 --> 00:38:09,560
Speaker 1: up their mind on Getto's guilt. One perspective, juror, the

545
00:38:09,719 --> 00:38:14,120
Speaker 1: aptly named John Lynch, summed up the feelings of many

546
00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:17,000
Speaker 1: in the jury pool when he said, I think he

547
00:38:17,040 --> 00:38:19,920
Speaker 1: ought to be hung or burnt or something else. I

548
00:38:19,960 --> 00:38:22,640
Speaker 1: don't think there is any evidence in the United States

549
00:38:22,680 --> 00:38:25,759
Speaker 1: to convince me any other way. Over the course of

550
00:38:25,880 --> 00:38:29,160
Speaker 1: three days, one hundred and seventy five men were questioned

551
00:38:29,200 --> 00:38:34,840
Speaker 1: on matters of religion, capital punishment, and insanity. Eventually a

552
00:38:34,920 --> 00:38:40,480
Speaker 1: suitable jury was found. On Thursday, November seventeenth, the prosecution

553
00:38:40,680 --> 00:38:45,200
Speaker 1: began its case. Before Da George Corkhill could begin his

554
00:38:45,320 --> 00:38:49,279
Speaker 1: opening statement. However, Gettou stood up and objected to the

555
00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:53,719
Speaker 1: presence of Lee Robinson, the court appointed defense lawyer. Robinson

556
00:38:53,840 --> 00:38:58,360
Speaker 1: was unnecessary, Geto said because he would be his own counsel.

557
00:38:59,200 --> 00:39:02,040
Speaker 1: I intend to be heard in this case, he announced,

558
00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:06,279
Speaker 1: and I will make a noise about it. Getou would

559
00:39:06,400 --> 00:39:09,480
Speaker 1: certainly be making a lot of noise in the coming months.

560
00:39:10,280 --> 00:39:13,920
Speaker 1: Judge Cox, afraid of giving the defense any possible grounds

561
00:39:13,920 --> 00:39:17,800
Speaker 1: for an appeal, treated Getoaux with kid gloves throughout the trial,

562
00:39:18,280 --> 00:39:23,040
Speaker 1: never silencing him despite his numerous outbursts which both horrified

563
00:39:23,080 --> 00:39:27,920
Speaker 1: and entertained observers. In this instance, Getou eventually sat down,

564
00:39:28,239 --> 00:39:31,799
Speaker 1: but not before further insulting his lawyers and reasserting his

565
00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:36,880
Speaker 1: own role as a quote agent of the deity. Finally,

566
00:39:37,160 --> 00:39:40,920
Speaker 1: Corkhill could deliver his opening statement, which was a standard

567
00:39:40,960 --> 00:39:44,279
Speaker 1: recital of the facts and an appeal for sympathy for

568
00:39:44,400 --> 00:39:49,400
Speaker 1: Garfield's bereaved family. The prosecution followed their opening with a

569
00:39:49,440 --> 00:39:52,239
Speaker 1: steady procession of witnesses who laid out the facts of

570
00:39:52,280 --> 00:39:55,560
Speaker 1: Getou's planning for the murder, the details of the shooting,

571
00:39:55,960 --> 00:40:00,520
Speaker 1: and Garfield's treatment and death. On Saturday the nineteen the

572
00:40:00,560 --> 00:40:05,160
Speaker 1: defense introduced Garfield's doctor, who helpfully provided the jury with

573
00:40:05,239 --> 00:40:09,040
Speaker 1: a five inch segment of Garfield's spine so they could

574
00:40:09,040 --> 00:40:13,440
Speaker 1: observe the injuries for themselves. After this first round of

575
00:40:13,480 --> 00:40:18,319
Speaker 1: prosecution witnesses, George Schoville delivered the defense opening. A main

576
00:40:18,440 --> 00:40:21,920
Speaker 1: component of his argument was the question of how exactly

577
00:40:22,000 --> 00:40:26,200
Speaker 1: the jury should determine Gueteau's level of sanity and subsequently,

578
00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:31,240
Speaker 1: his level of responsibility. At this time, most US states

579
00:40:31,400 --> 00:40:34,680
Speaker 1: used the McNaughton rule to determine the validity of an

580
00:40:34,680 --> 00:40:39,560
Speaker 1: insanity plea, named after a British man, Daniel McNaughton, who

581
00:40:39,600 --> 00:40:42,719
Speaker 1: had attempted to murder British Prime Minister Robert Peel in

582
00:40:42,800 --> 00:40:45,880
Speaker 1: eighteen forty three and who had been acquitted on the

583
00:40:45,880 --> 00:40:49,279
Speaker 1: basis of his insanity. The rule was a result of

584
00:40:49,280 --> 00:40:51,759
Speaker 1: a review by the British courts into whether it was

585
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:56,680
Speaker 1: too easy for defendants to claim insanity. Under the McNaughton rule,

586
00:40:56,880 --> 00:41:00,279
Speaker 1: a defendant now had to prove that quote at the

587
00:41:00,320 --> 00:41:03,480
Speaker 1: time of the committing of the act, the party accused

588
00:41:03,640 --> 00:41:07,080
Speaker 1: was laboring under such a defect of reasoning from a

589
00:41:07,120 --> 00:41:10,400
Speaker 1: disease of the mind as not to know the nature

590
00:41:10,480 --> 00:41:13,920
Speaker 1: and quality of the act he was doing, or if

591
00:41:13,960 --> 00:41:16,480
Speaker 1: he did know it, that he did not know it

592
00:41:16,560 --> 00:41:21,240
Speaker 1: was wrong. It's a strict standard, and by the eighteen eighties,

593
00:41:21,520 --> 00:41:25,800
Speaker 1: criticism to the rule's rigidity was growing. In his book

594
00:41:25,960 --> 00:41:29,520
Speaker 1: The Trial of the Assassin Guiteau, Psychiatry and Law in

595
00:41:29,560 --> 00:41:33,520
Speaker 1: the Gilded Age, Charles E. Rosenberg discusses some of the

596
00:41:33,600 --> 00:41:38,320
Speaker 1: commonly raised objections to the McNaughton rule, which Rosenberg notes

597
00:41:38,520 --> 00:41:42,319
Speaker 1: is quote not a medical test for sanity, but a

598
00:41:42,400 --> 00:41:47,080
Speaker 1: legal test for responsibility. First, the test did not allow

599
00:41:47,160 --> 00:41:52,200
Speaker 1: for any nuance in the question of responsibility, as John Bucknell,

600
00:41:52,360 --> 00:41:56,560
Speaker 1: an English authority on insanity and the Law, argued, quote,

601
00:41:56,920 --> 00:42:01,280
Speaker 1: the law did not provide in theory for degree of responsibility.

602
00:42:01,880 --> 00:42:08,240
Speaker 1: One was either sane and responsible or insane and absolutely irresponsible.

603
00:42:08,719 --> 00:42:13,920
Speaker 1: Yet clinical observation, even common sense experience attested to the

604
00:42:14,000 --> 00:42:19,160
Speaker 1: existence of every conceivable gradation of mental power and control.

605
00:42:20,400 --> 00:42:24,040
Speaker 1: The question of control was another big one. Someone might

606
00:42:24,160 --> 00:42:27,080
Speaker 1: know that an act was wrong, but were they truly

607
00:42:27,200 --> 00:42:30,759
Speaker 1: responsible for their actions if their mental illness compelled them

608
00:42:30,760 --> 00:42:34,879
Speaker 1: to act. By the time of Geteau's trial, two new

609
00:42:35,000 --> 00:42:37,960
Speaker 1: legal standards which hoped to address the deficiencies in the

610
00:42:38,040 --> 00:42:42,920
Speaker 1: McNaughton rule had appeared. The first was the irresistible impulse test,

611
00:42:43,239 --> 00:42:46,400
Speaker 1: which is just what it sounds like. Could a mentally

612
00:42:46,480 --> 00:42:49,920
Speaker 1: ill defendant control their actions or was the impulse to

613
00:42:49,960 --> 00:42:55,200
Speaker 1: commit the crime irresistible. Several states had adopted the irresistible

614
00:42:55,239 --> 00:42:59,120
Speaker 1: impulse test beginning in the mid nineteenth century. The second

615
00:42:59,160 --> 00:43:03,040
Speaker 1: test originated in New Hampshire and thus became known as

616
00:43:03,280 --> 00:43:06,880
Speaker 1: the New Hampshire Rule. This was the most lenient test,

617
00:43:07,480 --> 00:43:10,719
Speaker 1: asking only if the defendant's actions were a product of

618
00:43:10,719 --> 00:43:15,279
Speaker 1: their mental illness. If so, they could not be held responsible.

619
00:43:16,080 --> 00:43:20,319
Speaker 1: In eighteen eighty one, Washington d c. Courts only subscribed

620
00:43:20,360 --> 00:43:24,640
Speaker 1: to the McNaughton rule. Getau's many public statements before the

621
00:43:24,719 --> 00:43:27,400
Speaker 1: trial had made it clear that he both knew the

622
00:43:27,440 --> 00:43:30,120
Speaker 1: shooting to be a crime, and also that he had

623
00:43:30,160 --> 00:43:34,400
Speaker 1: planned his actions, not acted on impulse. In order for

624
00:43:34,440 --> 00:43:37,920
Speaker 1: Getou's defense team to have even a chance at acquittal,

625
00:43:38,520 --> 00:43:41,120
Speaker 1: they would need to convince the court to adopt a

626
00:43:41,239 --> 00:43:46,200
Speaker 1: new test of insanity and responsibility. In his opening statement,

627
00:43:46,480 --> 00:43:49,719
Speaker 1: Scoville urged the court to adopt a standard closer to

628
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:53,759
Speaker 1: the New Hampshire Rule, telling the jurors quote, it will

629
00:43:53,840 --> 00:43:56,719
Speaker 1: be for you to say, taking all the facts in

630
00:43:56,760 --> 00:43:59,960
Speaker 1: this case, whether this crime would have been committed by

631
00:44:00,120 --> 00:44:03,880
Speaker 1: the accused if he had been of sound mind, judgment,

632
00:44:04,200 --> 00:44:08,799
Speaker 1: and reason. He reminded the jury that society's understanding of

633
00:44:08,840 --> 00:44:12,719
Speaker 1: mental illness and its treatment of mentally ill people had

634
00:44:12,719 --> 00:44:16,719
Speaker 1: progressively improved over the past centuries, and argued that the

635
00:44:16,800 --> 00:44:20,800
Speaker 1: legal consideration of mental illness should follow the same trend.

636
00:44:21,719 --> 00:44:26,160
Speaker 1: After Scoville wrapped up, the defense introduced witnesses from Getau's past,

637
00:44:26,760 --> 00:44:30,680
Speaker 1: all of whom testified to his mental instability. These witnesses

638
00:44:30,719 --> 00:44:34,319
Speaker 1: included the Scoville family physician who had assessed Getaux in

639
00:44:34,360 --> 00:44:37,760
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy five after his attempted attack on his sister,

640
00:44:38,440 --> 00:44:40,800
Speaker 1: as well as a neighbor of Getau's at a boarding

641
00:44:40,840 --> 00:44:48,960
Speaker 1: house who described the defendant as abnormal. The only defense

642
00:44:49,000 --> 00:44:53,400
Speaker 1: witness most observers cared about, though, was the defendant himself.

643
00:44:54,080 --> 00:44:57,640
Speaker 1: On November twenty eighth, Charles Geteau took the stand in

644
00:44:57,719 --> 00:45:04,239
Speaker 1: his own defense, a characteristic performance. For example, when Scoville

645
00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:07,080
Speaker 1: asked him to identify some of his letters, Getou could

646
00:45:07,120 --> 00:45:09,839
Speaker 1: not stop himself from commenting on how nice his own

647
00:45:09,840 --> 00:45:14,839
Speaker 1: handwriting was. His rational way of speaking about seemingly irrational

648
00:45:14,920 --> 00:45:18,960
Speaker 1: topics was also on full display. In measured tones, he

649
00:45:19,080 --> 00:45:22,040
Speaker 1: laid out his belief that if Garfield had stayed in office,

650
00:45:22,360 --> 00:45:26,239
Speaker 1: the Republican Party would have inevitably collapsed, leading to a

651
00:45:26,280 --> 00:45:32,440
Speaker 1: government takeover by the Democrats and eventually complete national financial collapse.

652
00:45:33,239 --> 00:45:36,480
Speaker 1: As Scoville led him through his reasoning for killing Garfield,

653
00:45:37,000 --> 00:45:40,160
Speaker 1: Guettou began to get frustrated that no one seemed to

654
00:45:40,280 --> 00:45:43,400
Speaker 1: understand that his actions had not been a crime against

655
00:45:43,440 --> 00:45:48,080
Speaker 1: the nation, but a gift to America. Some of these days,

656
00:45:48,160 --> 00:45:52,239
Speaker 1: he exclaimed, instead of saying getto the assassin, they will

657
00:45:52,280 --> 00:45:57,759
Speaker 1: say getto the patriot. For the prosecution, John Porter conducted

658
00:45:57,760 --> 00:46:01,400
Speaker 1: the cross examination of Gettou, working to draw a line

659
00:46:01,440 --> 00:46:05,960
Speaker 1: between Geto's claims of divine inspiration and the actual actions

660
00:46:06,000 --> 00:46:10,440
Speaker 1: he had taken. Question who bought the pistol? The deity

661
00:46:10,880 --> 00:46:15,560
Speaker 1: or you? Answer? I say the deity inspired the act,

662
00:46:15,640 --> 00:46:19,960
Speaker 1: and the deity will take care of it. Question were

663
00:46:20,000 --> 00:46:25,480
Speaker 1: you inspired to buy that British bulldog pistol? Answer? I

664
00:46:25,520 --> 00:46:28,160
Speaker 1: do not claim that I was to do that specific act,

665
00:46:28,600 --> 00:46:31,400
Speaker 1: but I do claim that the deity inspired me to

666
00:46:31,440 --> 00:46:34,440
Speaker 1: remove the president, and I had to use my ordinary

667
00:46:34,520 --> 00:46:37,160
Speaker 1: judgment as to the ways and means to accomplish the

668
00:46:37,160 --> 00:46:41,600
Speaker 1: deity's will. Question did it occur to you that there

669
00:46:41,680 --> 00:46:47,160
Speaker 1: was a commandment thou shalt not kill. Answer if it did,

670
00:46:47,440 --> 00:46:52,719
Speaker 1: the divine authority overcame the written law. Porter's cross examination

671
00:46:52,960 --> 00:46:58,200
Speaker 1: also highlighted another prosecution theme. Scoville had brought forward witnesses

672
00:46:58,200 --> 00:47:01,120
Speaker 1: who testified to Geto's in ay to hold down a

673
00:47:01,200 --> 00:47:04,440
Speaker 1: job or stay in one place for long as evidence

674
00:47:04,480 --> 00:47:08,719
Speaker 1: of his mental illness, But Porter and the prosecution interpreted

675
00:47:08,760 --> 00:47:12,520
Speaker 1: this pattern of behavior as evidence not of mental illness,

676
00:47:13,120 --> 00:47:17,080
Speaker 1: but of moral failing. In the words of George Corkhill,

677
00:47:17,600 --> 00:47:21,239
Speaker 1: the prosecution was trying to show that quote, what the

678
00:47:21,239 --> 00:47:27,080
Speaker 1: defense calls insanity is nothing more than devilish depravity. The

679
00:47:27,160 --> 00:47:31,400
Speaker 1: direct and cross examinations of Getau took a combined six days,

680
00:47:32,040 --> 00:47:36,200
Speaker 1: and by the end lawyers at witness alike were all exhausted,

681
00:47:36,920 --> 00:47:41,480
Speaker 1: but the trial had to continue. The following Monday, December fifth,

682
00:47:41,680 --> 00:47:46,640
Speaker 1: the expert witnesses arrived. In total, thirty six men were

683
00:47:46,640 --> 00:47:50,160
Speaker 1: called by both sides to testify to Getow's sanity or

684
00:47:50,239 --> 00:47:55,520
Speaker 1: lack thereof. George Scoville's inexperience with criminal law showed itself

685
00:47:55,600 --> 00:47:59,640
Speaker 1: clearly during this phase of the trial. While prosecutors walked

686
00:47:59,680 --> 00:48:04,640
Speaker 1: their expert witnesses through carefully constructed lines of questioning. Scoville

687
00:48:04,680 --> 00:48:08,400
Speaker 1: asked most of his questions only one question. First, he

688
00:48:08,480 --> 00:48:11,319
Speaker 1: delivered a long hypothetical in which he described a man

689
00:48:11,400 --> 00:48:14,560
Speaker 1: who sounded a lot like Getau, and then asked the

690
00:48:14,640 --> 00:48:17,840
Speaker 1: expert if, given these facts, he would describe such a

691
00:48:17,880 --> 00:48:21,799
Speaker 1: man as insane. This did not make for compelling testimony.

692
00:48:22,680 --> 00:48:26,759
Speaker 1: Despite the more convincing performance of the prosecution's experts, some

693
00:48:26,920 --> 00:48:30,480
Speaker 1: observers wondered whether they were protesting just a little too

694
00:48:30,719 --> 00:48:34,200
Speaker 1: hard about Getou's sanity. Could it be that the public

695
00:48:34,200 --> 00:48:37,560
Speaker 1: hatred of Getou and the desire for a conviction was

696
00:48:37,600 --> 00:48:42,360
Speaker 1: swaying these experts judgment. Finally, after more than two months

697
00:48:42,360 --> 00:48:47,600
Speaker 1: of testimony, closing arguments began on January twelfth, eighteen eighty two.

698
00:48:48,440 --> 00:48:52,560
Speaker 1: Walter Davige, the Washington criminal lawyer, began for the prosecution.

699
00:48:53,360 --> 00:48:58,279
Speaker 1: He held nothing back, saying of getto, I grant his egotism,

700
00:48:58,520 --> 00:49:02,400
Speaker 1: I grant his unpressed and to love of notoriety. But

701
00:49:02,480 --> 00:49:04,640
Speaker 1: I think it will be difficult for counsel on the

702
00:49:04,680 --> 00:49:08,240
Speaker 1: other side to convince you that because a man is egotistical,

703
00:49:08,640 --> 00:49:12,920
Speaker 1: he ought to have the privilege of slaying another. Further,

704
00:49:13,280 --> 00:49:16,480
Speaker 1: Daviage discussed the potential danger of an acquittal on the

705
00:49:16,520 --> 00:49:20,960
Speaker 1: basis of insanity, saying that it would be quote tantamount

706
00:49:21,040 --> 00:49:25,279
Speaker 1: to inviting every crack brained, ill balanced man, with or

707
00:49:25,360 --> 00:49:28,919
Speaker 1: without motive, to resort to the knife or to the pistol,

708
00:49:29,120 --> 00:49:33,000
Speaker 1: and to slay a man for party purposes, or it

709
00:49:33,080 --> 00:49:37,600
Speaker 1: may be without any purposes whatever. Charles Reed delivered the

710
00:49:37,640 --> 00:49:42,200
Speaker 1: first defense, closing in plain language. He asked the jury

711
00:49:42,239 --> 00:49:46,040
Speaker 1: to consider Guetau's actions both during the crime and during

712
00:49:46,080 --> 00:49:49,320
Speaker 1: the trial and decide if they were really the actions

713
00:49:49,360 --> 00:49:52,560
Speaker 1: of a sane man. Would a sane man believe that

714
00:49:52,600 --> 00:49:55,759
Speaker 1: the country would thank him for killing the president? Would

715
00:49:55,760 --> 00:49:59,240
Speaker 1: a sane man describe himself as an agent of God

716
00:49:59,360 --> 00:50:02,799
Speaker 1: on a mission of murder? Reid told the jurors that

717
00:50:02,840 --> 00:50:07,320
Speaker 1: they ought to judge Getau's culpability themselves, using common sense

718
00:50:08,000 --> 00:50:12,520
Speaker 1: instead of relying on expert witnesses. Will you send a

719
00:50:12,560 --> 00:50:16,520
Speaker 1: man to the gallows on the opinion of doctors? He asked.

720
00:50:17,480 --> 00:50:20,960
Speaker 1: George Scoville also went after the doctors in his defense closing,

721
00:50:21,320 --> 00:50:24,480
Speaker 1: pointing out that the prosecution's experts had all agreed that

722
00:50:24,520 --> 00:50:28,319
Speaker 1: Getaux had no brain disease, while also acknowledging that no

723
00:50:28,440 --> 00:50:32,239
Speaker 1: brain disease could be diagnosed into l autopsy. It was

724
00:50:32,280 --> 00:50:37,160
Speaker 1: an absurd contradiction, Scoville argued. Getau, inspired by this point,

725
00:50:37,239 --> 00:50:40,360
Speaker 1: shouted out those experts hang a man and examined his

726
00:50:40,440 --> 00:50:45,080
Speaker 1: brain afterward, and Scoville disputed Davage's point about the dangerous

727
00:50:45,080 --> 00:50:47,960
Speaker 1: precedent a not guilty verdict would have on the legal

728
00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:51,960
Speaker 1: system in the country. On the contrary, he said, executing

729
00:50:52,000 --> 00:50:57,400
Speaker 1: a clearly insane man would quote constitute a permanent discredit

730
00:50:57,480 --> 00:51:02,080
Speaker 1: to American courts. After skill Ville concluded, Gettou asked to

731
00:51:02,120 --> 00:51:05,719
Speaker 1: deliver a closing of his own. Judge Cox denied his

732
00:51:05,800 --> 00:51:08,960
Speaker 1: request at first, but after the prosecution said they had

733
00:51:09,000 --> 00:51:13,920
Speaker 1: no objection, allowed Geteau to proceed. Geteau prefaced his speech

734
00:51:13,960 --> 00:51:17,040
Speaker 1: by saying, with no apparent humor, I am not afraid

735
00:51:17,040 --> 00:51:20,719
Speaker 1: of anyone shooting me. The shooting business is declining. In

736
00:51:20,760 --> 00:51:24,120
Speaker 1: the rambling speech that followed, Getou compared himself to a

737
00:51:24,200 --> 00:51:28,960
Speaker 1: number of American heroes, including George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant,

738
00:51:29,040 --> 00:51:32,959
Speaker 1: and John Brown. Here he stopped and performed a verse

739
00:51:32,960 --> 00:51:36,480
Speaker 1: from the popular Civil War song John Brown's Bodies in

740
00:51:36,560 --> 00:51:41,480
Speaker 1: an odd chanting voice. I suffer in bonds as a patriot,

741
00:51:41,600 --> 00:51:45,279
Speaker 1: he continued, because I had the inspiration and nerve to

742
00:51:45,440 --> 00:51:48,319
Speaker 1: unite a great political party to the end that the

743
00:51:48,440 --> 00:51:52,840
Speaker 1: nation might be saved another desolating war. Geteau ended with

744
00:51:52,880 --> 00:51:56,560
Speaker 1: a threat, if a hair of my head is harmed,

745
00:51:56,760 --> 00:52:00,560
Speaker 1: this nation will go down in desolation. All you can

746
00:52:00,560 --> 00:52:02,719
Speaker 1: do is put my body in the ground, but this

747
00:52:02,920 --> 00:52:06,320
Speaker 1: nation will pay for it as sure as you are alive.

748
00:52:07,640 --> 00:52:11,480
Speaker 1: Nothing could appropriately follow this performance, so the court adjourned

749
00:52:11,520 --> 00:52:14,960
Speaker 1: for the day. After taking Sunday off, the trial resumed

750
00:52:15,000 --> 00:52:18,799
Speaker 1: on Monday with the final prosecution closing argument to be

751
00:52:18,920 --> 00:52:24,080
Speaker 1: delivered by John Porter. Porter was exhausted and infuriated by

752
00:52:24,080 --> 00:52:28,000
Speaker 1: the long, slow trial, and he laid into not just Guettoau,

753
00:52:28,440 --> 00:52:32,279
Speaker 1: but also the defense lawyers in his venomous closing. In

754
00:52:32,360 --> 00:52:37,080
Speaker 1: one striking moment, he evoked Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth

755
00:52:37,560 --> 00:52:40,800
Speaker 1: and said getto was worse because at least Wilkes Booth

756
00:52:40,920 --> 00:52:45,120
Speaker 1: was brave. Gettou, Porter said, should be regarded as the

757
00:52:45,120 --> 00:52:49,960
Speaker 1: most cold blooded and selfish murderer of the last sixty centuries.

758
00:52:50,600 --> 00:52:54,680
Speaker 1: He ended with an appeal to the jury gentlemen, you

759
00:52:54,800 --> 00:53:07,000
Speaker 1: must now do your part in making assassination reprehensible. With that,

760
00:53:07,440 --> 00:53:10,360
Speaker 1: it was time for Judge Cox to instruct the jury.

761
00:53:11,239 --> 00:53:14,160
Speaker 1: Though the defense had argued strenuously for the court to

762
00:53:14,200 --> 00:53:17,040
Speaker 1: consider the new Hampshire rule in its legal framework for

763
00:53:17,080 --> 00:53:21,960
Speaker 1: the case, Cox denied their requests. The only rule that

764
00:53:22,000 --> 00:53:24,759
Speaker 1: the jury could rely on in determining the validity of

765
00:53:24,800 --> 00:53:28,920
Speaker 1: the insanity plea, he made it known, was the McNaughton rule.

766
00:53:29,600 --> 00:53:33,360
Speaker 1: Guetau's mental state was only relevant if it had caused

767
00:53:33,400 --> 00:53:36,839
Speaker 1: him not to know that his actions were wrong. Indifference

768
00:53:36,920 --> 00:53:40,120
Speaker 1: to what is right is not ignorance of it, and

769
00:53:40,200 --> 00:53:44,359
Speaker 1: depravity is not insanity, and we must be careful not

770
00:53:44,400 --> 00:53:50,040
Speaker 1: to mistake moral perversion for mental disease, Cox told jurors.

771
00:53:50,840 --> 00:53:54,520
Speaker 1: After concluding his instructions, he sent the jury to deliberate.

772
00:53:55,480 --> 00:53:59,040
Speaker 1: It was four thirty five pm on January twenty fifth,

773
00:53:59,520 --> 00:54:04,160
Speaker 1: eighteen eight two. The jury returned at five point forty.

774
00:54:04,920 --> 00:54:08,520
Speaker 1: It was dark outside already, and the old courtroom, which

775
00:54:08,560 --> 00:54:13,280
Speaker 1: did not yet have gaslights, was illuminated only by candles.

776
00:54:13,320 --> 00:54:17,719
Speaker 1: In the shadowy flickering candlelight, the jury foreman rose and

777
00:54:17,800 --> 00:54:21,440
Speaker 1: told Judge Cox that they had reached a conclusion for

778
00:54:21,520 --> 00:54:25,560
Speaker 1: the charge of murdering President James Garfield. They had found

779
00:54:25,560 --> 00:54:34,800
Speaker 1: the defendant, Charles J. Getteaux, guilty. On February third, Judge

780
00:54:34,800 --> 00:54:39,280
Speaker 1: Cox sentenced Charles Getoaux to be hanged on June thirtieth,

781
00:54:39,440 --> 00:54:44,080
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty two. The defense filed several appeals, all of

782
00:54:44,120 --> 00:54:50,040
Speaker 1: which were rejected. Getau's siblings, John and Francis petitioned President

783
00:54:50,160 --> 00:54:53,960
Speaker 1: Arthur to stay the execution, and a group of neurologists

784
00:54:54,000 --> 00:54:57,560
Speaker 1: asked the president to appoint an independent commission to assess

785
00:54:57,560 --> 00:55:02,680
Speaker 1: Getau's mental competency. Arthur through seriously considered both requests, but

786
00:55:02,840 --> 00:55:07,960
Speaker 1: ultimately did not grant either. In his cell, Getou remained calm,

787
00:55:08,120 --> 00:55:11,200
Speaker 1: certain that one of his imagined high powered allies would

788
00:55:11,239 --> 00:55:13,799
Speaker 1: save him from the noose, but by the end of

789
00:55:13,880 --> 00:55:18,240
Speaker 1: June he had become reconciled to his fate. On June

790
00:55:18,239 --> 00:55:21,520
Speaker 1: twenty ninth, he paid a prison worker to wash and

791
00:55:21,640 --> 00:55:25,239
Speaker 1: press his black suit. On June thirtieth, he had his

792
00:55:25,320 --> 00:55:28,239
Speaker 1: shoes shined, just as he had on the day of

793
00:55:28,239 --> 00:55:33,319
Speaker 1: the assassination. Getou wanted to look his best outside a

794
00:55:33,320 --> 00:55:36,560
Speaker 1: crowd of more than a thousand people milled around the gallows,

795
00:55:37,000 --> 00:55:41,360
Speaker 1: anxiously awaiting the prisoner. Their number included two hundred and

796
00:55:41,360 --> 00:55:43,799
Speaker 1: fifty members of the public who had gotten tickets to

797
00:55:43,840 --> 00:55:50,160
Speaker 1: the execution. More than twenty thousand people had requested a spot.

798
00:55:52,520 --> 00:55:56,640
Speaker 1: Getou was escorted onto the scaffold shortly after noon. He

799
00:55:56,719 --> 00:55:59,560
Speaker 1: appeared calm holding a poem that he had written that

800
00:55:59,640 --> 00:56:03,280
Speaker 1: morning and had been given permission to read. He began

801
00:56:03,440 --> 00:56:07,480
Speaker 1: by paraphrasing a verse from Matthew. Except ye become as

802
00:56:07,520 --> 00:56:11,280
Speaker 1: a little child, ye cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

803
00:56:12,080 --> 00:56:17,000
Speaker 1: The following lines were quote intended to indicate my feelings

804
00:56:17,080 --> 00:56:20,400
Speaker 1: at the moment of leaving this world. If set to music,

805
00:56:20,480 --> 00:56:23,640
Speaker 1: they may be rendered very effective. The idea is that

806
00:56:23,719 --> 00:56:26,560
Speaker 1: of a child babbling to his mama and his papa.

807
00:56:27,160 --> 00:56:31,279
Speaker 1: Running for twenty six lines. The poem reveals Getau's continuing

808
00:56:31,320 --> 00:56:35,280
Speaker 1: belief in the righteousness of his crime. He read it aloud,

809
00:56:35,640 --> 00:56:40,280
Speaker 1: in keeping with his introduction, in a falsetto childlike voice.

810
00:56:40,960 --> 00:56:45,799
Speaker 1: I saved my party and my land, glory, hallelujah. But

811
00:56:45,920 --> 00:56:48,759
Speaker 1: they have murdered me for it, and that is the

812
00:56:48,800 --> 00:56:53,839
Speaker 1: reason I am going to the lordy glory, Hallelujah. Glory, hallelujah,

813
00:56:54,040 --> 00:56:57,719
Speaker 1: I am going to the Lordy. When he finished, his

814
00:56:57,880 --> 00:57:01,560
Speaker 1: legs were bound together, black hood was placed over his

815
00:57:01,680 --> 00:57:05,200
Speaker 1: head and a noose slung round his neck. At his

816
00:57:05,280 --> 00:57:08,320
Speaker 1: own signal, dropping the piece of paper his poem was

817
00:57:08,360 --> 00:57:12,400
Speaker 1: written on, the trap door was sprung and Charles Guettou

818
00:57:12,520 --> 00:57:17,280
Speaker 1: plummeted down dead in an instant. Gueteaux was buried in

819
00:57:17,320 --> 00:57:20,720
Speaker 1: the jail courtyard, but his body would not rest for long.

820
00:57:21,880 --> 00:57:24,600
Speaker 1: A few days later it was exhumed and taken to

821
00:57:24,640 --> 00:57:28,320
Speaker 1: the Army Medical Museum, where doctor D. S. Lamb, the

822
00:57:28,360 --> 00:57:32,560
Speaker 1: same doctor who performed the autopsy of Garfield, dissected the assassin.

823
00:57:33,720 --> 00:57:37,720
Speaker 1: Sections of his brain were sent to neurologists around the country.

824
00:57:37,880 --> 00:57:41,880
Speaker 1: The physical evidence of any brain damage or disease was inconclusive,

825
00:57:42,240 --> 00:57:44,920
Speaker 1: and we now know that mental illness often does not

826
00:57:45,000 --> 00:57:49,760
Speaker 1: manifest in observable physical differences in the brain. Today, parts

827
00:57:49,800 --> 00:57:52,680
Speaker 1: of his preserved corpse are still stored in a National

828
00:57:52,760 --> 00:57:57,360
Speaker 1: Museum of Health and Medicine. Lucretia Garfield took her children

829
00:57:57,440 --> 00:58:01,240
Speaker 1: back to Ohio and set to work organizing her husband's papers,

830
00:58:01,840 --> 00:58:05,680
Speaker 1: eventually creating the first presidential library in the couple's home

831
00:58:05,720 --> 00:58:10,920
Speaker 1: of Lawnfield in Mentor, Ohio. For many people, Garfield's memory

832
00:58:11,040 --> 00:58:14,920
Speaker 1: started to fade. Within years of his assassination. He became

833
00:58:15,000 --> 00:58:17,800
Speaker 1: more of a symbol than a man. It was a

834
00:58:17,840 --> 00:58:21,960
Speaker 1: transformation that had begun during the trial, where Garfield was

835
00:58:22,000 --> 00:58:25,040
Speaker 1: held up as an emblem of everything right with America,

836
00:58:25,920 --> 00:58:30,760
Speaker 1: a hard working, self made, morally upright leader, while Geteau

837
00:58:31,040 --> 00:58:37,400
Speaker 1: represented everything wrong with the country, fame obsessed, narcissistic, and selfish.

838
00:58:38,720 --> 00:58:42,760
Speaker 1: But before long, Geteaux came to symbolize something else, entirely

839
00:58:43,480 --> 00:58:47,720
Speaker 1: a failure of the American legal system, as Charles Rosenberg

840
00:58:47,800 --> 00:58:51,920
Speaker 1: puts it. Within a dozen years of Getou's execution, few

841
00:58:52,040 --> 00:58:56,320
Speaker 1: interested physicians doubted that he had been insane. Those harshest

842
00:58:56,360 --> 00:58:59,040
Speaker 1: in their judgment did not hesitate to call the trial

843
00:58:59,080 --> 00:59:03,000
Speaker 1: a miscarriage of justice, disgraceful to the legal and medical

844
00:59:03,040 --> 00:59:06,600
Speaker 1: professions alike. Part of this shift in opinion was due

845
00:59:06,640 --> 00:59:10,880
Speaker 1: to Getou's execution itself. His death had allowed for a

846
00:59:10,920 --> 00:59:16,120
Speaker 1: release of quote emotional energies that made impossible any real

847
00:59:16,160 --> 00:59:20,480
Speaker 1: debate while the assassin still lived. Per Rosenberg, and the

848
00:59:20,640 --> 00:59:23,640
Speaker 1: strange manner in which Getaux had gone to the gallows,

849
00:59:24,160 --> 00:59:29,120
Speaker 1: the poetry the play acting. The seemingly implacable conviction that

850
00:59:29,200 --> 00:59:32,560
Speaker 1: he had done no wrong made many who had believed

851
00:59:32,560 --> 00:59:35,720
Speaker 1: that he had faked his insanity for the trial reconsider

852
00:59:36,320 --> 00:59:39,200
Speaker 1: what benefit could there be in behaving this way when

853
00:59:39,200 --> 00:59:44,160
Speaker 1: the end was both near and inescapable. This reckoning with

854
00:59:44,240 --> 00:59:48,360
Speaker 1: the truth of Getou's mental competency prompted a reconsideration of

855
00:59:48,400 --> 00:59:52,360
Speaker 1: the ethics of trying and executing him. But the reckoning

856
00:59:52,440 --> 00:59:56,440
Speaker 1: wasn't entirely new either. Recall this quote from the New

857
00:59:56,520 --> 00:59:59,360
Speaker 1: York Times. The feeling is quite general that it would

858
00:59:59,360 --> 01:00:01,480
Speaker 1: be best to excit gute him first and try the

859
01:00:01,560 --> 01:00:05,960
Speaker 1: question of his sanity afterward. Many Americans, including some of

860
01:00:05,960 --> 01:00:09,720
Speaker 1: the lawyers who worked on Getou's trial, had serious questions

861
01:00:09,720 --> 01:00:13,600
Speaker 1: about his mental competency even as the trial progressed. But

862
01:00:13,680 --> 01:00:16,640
Speaker 1: at the same time, the predominant feeling was that such

863
01:00:16,680 --> 01:00:20,920
Speaker 1: a crime must be punished. How to balance those two beliefs.

864
01:00:21,880 --> 01:00:24,880
Speaker 1: The true questions at the heart of Charles Getou's trial

865
01:00:25,080 --> 01:00:27,880
Speaker 1: are about the role of the legal system. Is it

866
01:00:27,920 --> 01:00:32,200
Speaker 1: purely retributive, Whose rights are prioritized? Who do we care

867
01:00:32,240 --> 01:00:36,080
Speaker 1: most about protecting. We can see two different approaches to

868
01:00:36,120 --> 01:00:40,000
Speaker 1: these questions. In the arguments of the lawyers, the prosecutor

869
01:00:40,120 --> 01:00:44,000
Speaker 1: Davage argued that Getteaux must be convicted in order to

870
01:00:44,080 --> 01:00:49,040
Speaker 1: serve as a deterrent, while the defense attorney Scoville the

871
01:00:49,160 --> 01:00:52,640
Speaker 1: legal system needed to model progressive treatment of the mentally ill.

872
01:00:53,560 --> 01:00:58,800
Speaker 1: Getau's execution also helped put the assassination, a deeply bewildering event,

873
01:00:59,200 --> 01:01:03,480
Speaker 1: into a familiar framework. Commit a murder, go on trial,

874
01:01:03,760 --> 01:01:07,400
Speaker 1: be found guilty, be executed. It was a pattern that

875
01:01:07,480 --> 01:01:11,800
Speaker 1: the American public could follow. It allowed them to contextualize

876
01:01:11,840 --> 01:01:15,320
Speaker 1: and make sense of the unthinkable. It allowed them to

877
01:01:15,360 --> 01:01:19,800
Speaker 1: believe that Geteaux was an evil man with simple selfish motives.

878
01:01:20,520 --> 01:01:23,760
Speaker 1: This narrative allowed the public to ignore the more complex

879
01:01:23,880 --> 01:01:28,200
Speaker 1: reality of the situation. Sometimes for reasons that are beyond

880
01:01:28,200 --> 01:01:34,240
Speaker 1: our control, bad things happen. The historian Henry Graff has

881
01:01:34,320 --> 01:01:39,600
Speaker 1: described society's treatment of Geteau as a defense mechanism, a

882
01:01:39,640 --> 01:01:42,959
Speaker 1: way of protecting our own understanding of the world's order.

883
01:01:43,640 --> 01:01:47,360
Speaker 1: Graph notes that historians have continued to perpetuate this defense

884
01:01:47,440 --> 01:01:50,960
Speaker 1: mechanism even up to the present by referring to Geteau

885
01:01:51,120 --> 01:01:54,480
Speaker 1: not as a mentally ill man, but as a quote

886
01:01:54,920 --> 01:02:00,840
Speaker 1: disappointed office seeker. Geteau's execution promised a kind of emotional catharsis,

887
01:02:01,520 --> 01:02:05,520
Speaker 1: a feeling of evening the scales when something terrible has

888
01:02:05,560 --> 01:02:09,520
Speaker 1: been done. It's natural to want someone to pay. But

889
01:02:09,600 --> 01:02:13,120
Speaker 1: what if that someone has diminished capacity? This is still

890
01:02:13,160 --> 01:02:16,920
Speaker 1: a question we struggle with, particularly in death penalty cases,

891
01:02:17,440 --> 01:02:21,680
Speaker 1: with the stakes of answering that question incorrectly are so high.

892
01:02:22,600 --> 01:02:25,960
Speaker 1: But there is one thing we know about Charles Guettou's sentence.

893
01:02:26,600 --> 01:02:29,560
Speaker 1: It did not serve as a kind of turrent Davage

894
01:02:29,600 --> 01:02:32,880
Speaker 1: had envisioned. No account of the trial can make this

895
01:02:32,920 --> 01:02:36,480
Speaker 1: point better than Charles Rosenberg's book, which has served as

896
01:02:36,520 --> 01:02:40,480
Speaker 1: an invaluable resource for this episode. Halfway through drafting his

897
01:02:40,600 --> 01:02:46,120
Speaker 1: manuscript on the assassination of President Garfield, news arrived from Dallas.

898
01:02:47,040 --> 01:02:51,000
Speaker 1: President John F. Kennedy had just been shot and killed.

899
01:02:52,080 --> 01:02:55,520
Speaker 1: That's the story of the United States v. Charles Guittau.

900
01:02:56,480 --> 01:02:58,360
Speaker 1: Stay with me after the break for a look into

901
01:02:58,360 --> 01:03:02,280
Speaker 1: the surprising truth behind Goodies Utoe's shocking claim that medical

902
01:03:02,320 --> 01:03:14,680
Speaker 1: malpractice was truly responsible for President Garfield's death. Throughout his trial,

903
01:03:15,080 --> 01:03:20,080
Speaker 1: Charles Getou blamed Garfield's doctors for the president's death. General

904
01:03:20,120 --> 01:03:25,920
Speaker 1: Garfield he said died from malpractice. According to his own physicians,

905
01:03:26,160 --> 01:03:30,040
Speaker 1: he was not fatally shocked. The doctors who mistreated him

906
01:03:30,120 --> 01:03:32,840
Speaker 1: ought to bear the odium of his death, and not

907
01:03:33,040 --> 01:03:37,920
Speaker 1: his assailant. Unlike many of Getau's outlandish claims, his idea

908
01:03:37,960 --> 01:03:41,200
Speaker 1: about medical malpractice has more than a grain of truth

909
01:03:41,280 --> 01:03:45,720
Speaker 1: to it. President Garfield's death was a tragedy for many reasons,

910
01:03:46,280 --> 01:03:50,280
Speaker 1: but perhaps most of all because of how preventable it was.

911
01:03:51,400 --> 01:03:54,920
Speaker 1: The wounds that he sustained on July second should not,

912
01:03:55,360 --> 01:03:59,600
Speaker 1: and in most cases, would not, have been fatal unless

913
01:03:59,680 --> 01:04:03,120
Speaker 1: the page was heavily weakened by a blood infection, which

914
01:04:03,160 --> 01:04:08,960
Speaker 1: Garfield was, and what caused that blood infection most likely

915
01:04:09,520 --> 01:04:15,000
Speaker 1: the unsterile practices of his doctors. Though Garfield had access

916
01:04:15,000 --> 01:04:19,880
Speaker 1: to the best physicians in America, prevailing scientific prejudices and

917
01:04:19,920 --> 01:04:24,880
Speaker 1: the ego of one man conspired to doom him. Nearly

918
01:04:25,000 --> 01:04:29,560
Speaker 1: twenty years before Garfield's shooting, the British surgeon doctor Joseph

919
01:04:29,680 --> 01:04:32,960
Speaker 1: Lister had drawn a connection between Louis Pastor's work on

920
01:04:33,040 --> 01:04:37,800
Speaker 1: micro organisms and the post surgical infections his own patients suffered.

921
01:04:38,440 --> 01:04:42,360
Speaker 1: Lister theorized that Pastor's micro organisms were the cause of

922
01:04:42,440 --> 01:04:46,960
Speaker 1: wound infection and became convinced that a sterilized medical environment

923
01:04:47,120 --> 01:04:50,960
Speaker 1: was the best way to prevent such infections. Today these

924
01:04:51,000 --> 01:04:54,800
Speaker 1: conclusions seem obvious, but in the mid nineteenth century they

925
01:04:54,800 --> 01:04:59,400
Speaker 1: were revolutionary, and like any revolutionary idea, they took some

926
01:04:59,440 --> 01:05:04,840
Speaker 1: getting used. By the eighteen eighties, most European doctors subscribed

927
01:05:04,880 --> 01:05:09,120
Speaker 1: to Lister's practice of sterilizing tools and environments, and they

928
01:05:09,120 --> 01:05:13,280
Speaker 1: had noticed a corresponding decrease in infection rates. But most

929
01:05:13,320 --> 01:05:17,880
Speaker 1: American doctors were still skeptical and questioned the usefulness of

930
01:05:17,960 --> 01:05:24,840
Speaker 1: Lister's admittedly tedious sterilization procedures. Unfortunately, one such skeptic would

931
01:05:24,960 --> 01:05:31,880
Speaker 1: end up managing Garfield's medical care. As soon as Garfield

932
01:05:32,000 --> 01:05:35,760
Speaker 1: was shot, doctors began to flock to the president, after all,

933
01:05:35,960 --> 01:05:39,080
Speaker 1: there was no more prestigious patient in the country. A

934
01:05:39,200 --> 01:05:43,240
Speaker 1: large number of doctors, however, did not translate to better care.

935
01:05:44,200 --> 01:05:47,800
Speaker 1: The first doctor by Garfield's side, the health officer for DC,

936
01:05:48,760 --> 01:05:54,680
Speaker 1: stuck his unclean finger directly into Garfield's bullet wound, and

937
01:05:54,840 --> 01:05:58,400
Speaker 1: this would not be the last time an unsterile instrument

938
01:05:58,520 --> 01:06:03,960
Speaker 1: was introduced into the president. Doctor doctor Willard Bliss, not

939
01:06:04,080 --> 01:06:08,440
Speaker 1: a mistake. His given first name was doctor, assumed control

940
01:06:08,520 --> 01:06:11,240
Speaker 1: of Garfield's medical care once the President was back in

941
01:06:11,280 --> 01:06:15,080
Speaker 1: the White House. Bliss became convinced that he was the

942
01:06:15,120 --> 01:06:18,200
Speaker 1: only one who could save the President and refused to

943
01:06:18,280 --> 01:06:22,240
Speaker 1: listen to any other medical professional, going so far as

944
01:06:22,280 --> 01:06:26,920
Speaker 1: to ban them from Garfield's presence. This was bad news

945
01:06:26,960 --> 01:06:30,600
Speaker 1: for Garfield. Though Bliss was a friend of Garfield's and

946
01:06:30,840 --> 01:06:34,280
Speaker 1: cared deeply for the President, he was also an opponent

947
01:06:34,320 --> 01:06:38,280
Speaker 1: of Lister's sterilization methods and a proponent of a number

948
01:06:38,320 --> 01:06:43,440
Speaker 1: of unorthodox cures. Bliss fed the wounded President an unhealthy

949
01:06:43,520 --> 01:06:47,480
Speaker 1: diet of alcohol and rich foods, kept the president's friends

950
01:06:47,480 --> 01:06:51,640
Speaker 1: and family away when their emotional support was most needed, and,

951
01:06:52,080 --> 01:06:58,280
Speaker 1: worst of all, regularly inspected Garfield's wounds with unsterilized probes.

952
01:06:59,160 --> 01:07:04,120
Speaker 1: When Garfield's autopsy was conducted, the attending physicians were horrified.

953
01:07:04,920 --> 01:07:09,640
Speaker 1: Running through Garfield's right side was a long wound. Bliss

954
01:07:09,720 --> 01:07:12,520
Speaker 1: was convinced that this was the path the bullet had traveled,

955
01:07:13,080 --> 01:07:17,560
Speaker 1: but the bullet had actually traveled into Garfield's left side.

956
01:07:18,240 --> 01:07:22,680
Speaker 1: The so called bullet wound had in reality been created

957
01:07:22,760 --> 01:07:27,320
Speaker 1: by Bliss's blind probing. The overall condition of the President's

958
01:07:27,320 --> 01:07:32,320
Speaker 1: body was also shocking. He was filled with abscesses and puss,

959
01:07:32,920 --> 01:07:37,400
Speaker 1: clear signs of a system wide infection. Had Garfield been

960
01:07:37,440 --> 01:07:41,400
Speaker 1: shot just fifteen years later, writes Candice Millard, expressing the

961
01:07:41,480 --> 01:07:45,920
Speaker 1: view of many historians and modern medical professionals, the bullet

962
01:07:46,000 --> 01:07:48,320
Speaker 1: in his back would have been quickly found by X

963
01:07:48,440 --> 01:07:52,680
Speaker 1: ray images and the wound treated with antiseptic surgery. He

964
01:07:52,800 --> 01:07:56,280
Speaker 1: might have been back on his feet within weeks. Had

965
01:07:56,280 --> 01:07:59,360
Speaker 1: he been able to receive modern medical care, he likely

966
01:07:59,360 --> 01:08:01,360
Speaker 1: would have spent no more than a few nights in

967
01:08:01,400 --> 01:08:06,440
Speaker 1: the hospital. Even had Garfield simply been left alone, he

968
01:08:06,560 --> 01:08:11,440
Speaker 1: almost certainly would have survived. It's not just the benefit

969
01:08:11,480 --> 01:08:14,560
Speaker 1: of hindsight that allows us to see what Bliss did wrong.

970
01:08:15,320 --> 01:08:19,960
Speaker 1: Doctors in Garfield's day were highly critical of Bliss. Bliss

971
01:08:20,000 --> 01:08:24,240
Speaker 1: refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing, declaring in a statement that

972
01:08:24,479 --> 01:08:29,360
Speaker 1: quote I should receive as I merit, the sympathy and goodwill,

973
01:08:29,760 --> 01:08:33,519
Speaker 1: as well as the lasting confidence of every patriotic citizen.

974
01:08:34,200 --> 01:08:37,880
Speaker 1: This kind of ghetto s qbris certainly did nothing to

975
01:08:38,000 --> 01:08:41,280
Speaker 1: endear Bliss to his medical critics, one of whom wrote,

976
01:08:41,600 --> 01:08:46,320
Speaker 1: in a brilliant turn of phrase that quote. Garfield's death

977
01:08:46,520 --> 01:08:50,519
Speaker 1: proved with certainty that, as the poet Thomas Gray had

978
01:08:50,520 --> 01:08:57,479
Speaker 1: written more than a century earlier, ignorance is bliss. Thank

979
01:08:57,560 --> 01:09:01,080
Speaker 1: you for listening to History on Trial. The main sources

980
01:09:01,120 --> 01:09:05,200
Speaker 1: for this episode were Candice Millard's book Destiny of the Republic,

981
01:09:05,600 --> 01:09:08,720
Speaker 1: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a

982
01:09:08,760 --> 01:09:13,400
Speaker 1: Precedent and Charles E. Rosenberg's book The Trial of the

983
01:09:13,439 --> 01:09:18,360
Speaker 1: Assassin Guiteau, Psychiatry and Law in the Gilded Age. For

984
01:09:18,439 --> 01:09:21,160
Speaker 1: a full bibliography, as well as a transcript of this

985
01:09:21,240 --> 01:09:26,160
Speaker 1: episode with citations, please visit our website History on Trial

986
01:09:26,320 --> 01:09:32,240
Speaker 1: podcast dot com. History on Trial is written and hosted

987
01:09:32,280 --> 01:09:36,160
Speaker 1: by me Mira Hayward. The show is edited and produced

988
01:09:36,200 --> 01:09:40,240
Speaker 1: by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer Trevor Young and executive

989
01:09:40,240 --> 01:09:45,519
Speaker 1: producers Dana Schwartz, Alexander Williams, Matt Frederick, and Mira Hayward.

990
01:09:46,120 --> 01:09:49,360
Speaker 1: Learn more about the show at History on Trial podcast

991
01:09:49,560 --> 01:09:53,200
Speaker 1: dot com and follow us on Instagram at History on

992
01:09:53,320 --> 01:09:58,679
Speaker 1: Trial and on Twitter at Underscore History on Trial. Find

993
01:09:58,720 --> 01:10:01,519
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my I heart Radio by visiting the

994
01:10:01,560 --> 01:10:05,680
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

995
01:10:05,680 --> 01:10:06,400
Speaker 1: favorite shows,