Publication information

Source:
New Jersey Law Journal
Source type: journal
Document type: editorial
Document title: none
Author(s): anonymous
Date of publication: October 1901
Volume number: 24
Issue number: 10
Pagination: 675

 
Citation
[untitled]. New Jersey Law Journal Oct. 1901 v24n10: p. 675.
 
Transcription
full text
 
Keywords
Leon Czolgosz (trial); Leon Czolgosz (trial: compared with Guiteau trial).
 
Named persons
Leon Czolgosz; James A. Garfield; Charles J. Guiteau; William McKinley.
 
Document


[untitled]

     The trial of Czolgosz, the assassin of President McKinley, occupied but a few hours during two days, and without legal quibbles. Two of the leading members of the Buffalo Bar had been requested by the Bar Association of that city to defend the prisoner, since he was not willing to employ counsel himself. These gentlemen, who were above any suspicion of pettifoggery, had the defendant examined by a reputable physician and, being unable to find him insane, simply saw to it that the proceedings and proofs were in regular order. As a matter of fact, no legal defense was attempted, as there was none to make. The assassin being convicted, he was sentenced to Auburn penitentiary, to die in the electric chair on October 28. The difference between this trial and that of the assassin of President Garfield is so great that it is an object lesson for the criminal courts of the country. Guiteau’s trial began on November 14 and was not closed until January 25 following, a period of over two months. The whole country was affronted at the spectacle presented, by which the defendant himself constantly interrupted counsel in court, and by which the counsel spun out a long and wholly unsatisfactory defense. In capital trials the time seems to have come when our courts take pains to do justice with reasonable celerity and without that system of pettifoggery which has been too often permitted.