The Trial at Buffalo

The trial of the assassin at Buffalo bids fair to be prompt, dignified, and thoroughly fair. He was indicted for murder in the first degree on September 16. No counsel appearing for the prisoner, it became the duty of the court to designate one or more attorneys to represent him in the trial; and upon the recommendation of the Buffalo bar two ex-justices of the Supreme Court—namely, Hon. Lorain L. Lewis and Hon. Robert C. Titus—were asked by Judge Emery to defend the accused. The task could not be a welcome one, [389][390] but these experienced men could assume it as a duty, with the understanding that they were serving as representatives of the entire bar association rather than in their individual capacity. This action was much to the credit of the Buffalo bar. It was expected that the trial would begin on September 23, the prosecution being conducted by District Attorney Penney, of Erie County. Nothing that was publicly known about the assassin would lead one to think him insane in the sense in which insanity may be admitted as a defense in court. There is, of course, a moral sense in which all crime may be said to partake of the quality of insanity; but that is not the sense in which the word is used in criminal law. The effort to ascertain whether or not the assassin had acted as the agent of a conspiracy led to much police activity last month, and various arrests of anarchists were made, notably that of a woman named Emma Goldman, an anarchist lecturer whose name has often been in the newspapers, and who was taken into custody at Chicago. Even though some of these people were morally guilty, their legal guilt as conspirators might be very hard to prove.