“. . . to the credit of the American people be it said that Czolgosz was given a fair trial.”

“Less than three hours of trial was required to hurry him to his doom, so that this will probably rank as the quickest capital case in the criminal annals of America.”

“The majesty of law has already nobly asserted itself. Nothing could be finer or more prophetic of good for the future than the manner in which justice is being meted out to the malefactor in the city of the assassination. Without haste, but sternly, without ruth as without cruelty, with consideration but without emotion, the trial proceeds.”

“The Grand Jury will be composed of American citizens, and will undoubtedly take care of the would-be assassin, and the authorities of Erie County will, for county, State, and National pride, make a vigorous prosecution.”

“There need be no unseemly haste, but if there ever was a case in which the machinery of the law should be made to act with dispatch it is this one. The people of this country are wondrously patient in dealing with wretches of this kind, but they are in no temper to tolerate legal quibbles or tricks to save or prolong the life of the cold-blooded murderer of President McKinley. Let the trial proceed at once, the sentence be pronounced and the full penalty of the law exacted without delay.”

“. . . it would be most consonant with the dignity of the Nation that trial and punishment should be had before a Federal court, rather than be left to possible prejudice and conceivable stupidity of a local court in perhaps some outlying and not fully settled part of the land.”

“All dispatch will be used and he will be indicted and tried as fast as the law can act.”

“It is the concern of all interested in the prosecution that the trial shall have every form of fairness, but that the occasion shall not be belittled by pettifoggery.”

“The trial of Czolgosz should be orderly, devoid of hysterical incidents, free from the clap-trap of blatherskite attorneys, dignified, and in all respects in keeping with the solemnity of the proceedings in which a human life is at stake. The trial of Czolgosz should be conducted along these lines. There should be no attempt at undue celerity, there should be no extended sessions of the court, there should be no departure from a sane, a regular and an ordinary procedure. By doing all things in this case according to law, according to precedent, according to well-established rules of judicial procedure, by jealously safeguarding to the prisoner whatever constitutional rights belong to him, the majesty, the might and the resistless course of justice will be best emphasized.”

“I, for one, would like to see this trial last but one session of the court, be that session two or twenty hours long. Judge, jury and lawyers can well fast and go sleepless until this stain on Buffalo’s fair name shall be wiped out.”

“Here is a case where a man has stricken down the beloved President of this country in broad daylight, in the presence of hundreds and thousands of spectators. If there ever was a case that would excite the anger, the wrath, of those who saw it, this was one. . . .”

“. . . this has been an orderly procedure, without indecent haste. . . .”

“The demurrer was flawless. There was no error in the trial, and no exceptions were taken on which to base an appeal.”

“We used every available means to defend the prisoner. We had no great recourse of the law to reach back to. We simply had to see that the trial was fair, and this, I think we did.”

“I could have voted for a verdict without leaving my seat.”

“I am well satisfied with the work done by the defense.”

“We, whose duty it was to defend the assassin of the President of the United States, did the best we know how.”

“As an American citizen, of course I wanted to see the man hanged, but as a lawyer I must say that had I been appointed to defend Czolgosz and acted as did his attorneys I should be ashamed of myself.”

“. . . one wonders what sort of lawyers he had, that they against all traditions of their craft, lent themselves not to efforts against expediting their client to the scaffold.”

“It would have been more in accord with the best traditions of the bar if the counsel had performed the duty assigned to him without so much self-consciousness, and without troubling himself to make the populace see that his heart was not in his work. The lawyer who defends a rich and influential criminal has more reason to apologize than the one who accepted the duty of seeing that a fair trial is given to the friendless, despised and despicable wretch at Buffalo.”

“The speech of Judge Lewis before the jury in the Czolgosz case was a remarkable exhibition of bad taste. . . .”

“There is, it seems, a general demand for privacy in the trial of the assassin Czolgosz, and we are at a loss to know why this brute, whose hands are red with the blood of the nation’s highest official, the same having been confessed by his foul lips, should be allowed a trial of any kind, either public or private.”

“This trial was a heavy blow to lynch law and, doubtless, has convinced a great many that there is no necessity for such indulgence by a civilized people.”

“The experts who we called are the best in the country, and yet they failed to find a sufficient derangement in Czolgosz’s mental faculties for them to go on the witness stand and say so.”

“. . . it will be noted throughout the world, as an illustration of the supremacy of the law in the United States, that legal safeguards were thrown about the criminal at every step of the procedure which resulted in his conviction.”

“The trial, though brief, was dignified, observed all of the orderly forms of law demanded by justice, and the prisoner had the benefit of counsel, who left none of his interests unguarded.”

“It would be impossible to praise too warmly the spirit evinced in this matter by the members of the bar of Erie County. For the honor of the profession, the insuring of absolute justice, the making impossible any charge of oppression or cruelty toward the wretched prisoner, and the elimination, so far as possible, of sensationalism in the treatment of this case, the course pursued by the bar as a body has been admirable.”

“The only satisfaction about the miserable business is that the police have taken suitable precautions for the safety of the prisoner, and that retribution will be dealt out to him according to law, and not at the hands of an infuriated mob.”

“The people of the United States are to be congratulated upon the good sense and decorum which marked all proceedings connected with the trial of the assassin of President McKinley. With a sickening recollection of the painful and disgraceful scenes attending the trial of Guiteau, it was not strange that many persons feared a repetition of similar scenes at Buffalo. That these were avoided and a speedy and orderly trial of the wretched prisoner was secured seems to have been due in great measure to the good judgment and sagacious activity of the Bar Association of Buffalo, a body which recognized the danger and promptly took measures to prevent it.”

“We hope the attorneys will . . . set the Profession an example, of simply seeing that the forms of law are observed in the trial, and that no unwarranted obstruction to the ends of justice may be interposed to protect a client whom they know to be guilty.”

     “The majesty of the law has been vindicated.
     Anglo Saxon Jurisprudence has been honored.
     The traditions of the legal Profession have been admirably maintained.
     Now let the lynchers and the mob retire and hide their heads in the presence of this magnificent object lesson.”

“. . . there was a noteworthy absence of all the vexatious, tedious and undignified proceedings which too often characterize criminal proceedings in this country.”

“Truly, the wheels of justice, when oiled by public opinion and unhampered by legal quibble, can move swiftly.”

“We rejoice that Justice in this case has struck with an iron hand, without traveling with its traditional leaden heel.”

“[The argument of counsel] for the defense, if such it could be called, impresses us as absolutely unique. We have read it carefully, and, but for the newspaper headlines classifying it as a defense, we might easily have mistaken it—certainly five-sixths of it—for the argument for the prosecution.”

“The promptness of the conviction is gratifying to all.”

“From the time of Daniel until now the world never saw proceedings in court any more worthy of admiration.”

“Such expedition cannot be looked for in all cases of murder, but the trial of Czolgosz should be an example for bench and bar and legislators. The English system is as nearly a model of the workings of even-handed justice as the world has ever seen. Yet it is not fettered by the delays which, among us, nullify the effects of punishment and furnish excuses and provocation for the lynching of criminals without any trial at all.”

“The assassin was given a fair trial, and the spectacle is one calculated to increase respect for law and order.”

“The conduct of the trial was swift, just, and devoid of dramatic incident. It differed little from the ordinary trial of a man charged with murder except for the higher tension of all connected with it and the increased interest of the outside world.”

“It is worth while to note the extraordinary promptness and brevity of the trial as contrasted with the sensational, tedious, and wearing sessions of Guiteau’s trial and of such murder cases as that of Molineux. The State of New York, and in particular the bench and bar of Erie County, deserve the highest praise for the dignity and fairness with which the proceedings were conducted from beginning to end.”

“. . . we venture to predict that this case will always be looked upon as somewhat of an anomaly. It is certainly without precedent in this country for counsel for a prisoner to entertain a firm belief in that prisoner’s insanity, and yet to put no witness on the stand in support of that belief.”

“The man who killed President McKinley has had a fair and decent trial, and we are likely to hear very little more about him, except that in about three weeks the announcement will be made that he is dead.”

“If all criminal cases were tried with the promptness which marked Czolgosz’s trial there would be less lynch law in this country and there would be more general respect for laws.”

“. . . in all the history of the world the cause of good government was never more completely vindicated or the authority of the law better illustrated than in the trial accorded the president’s murderer.”

“There is no doubt that the trial was conducted with the utmost dignity and impartiality, and that the verdict was a righteous and just one.”

“As the case recedes into the past the trial may assume unexpected proportions as a precedent in medical jurisprudence. Whether this will be for good or for evil, remains for the future to discover.”

“The crime of Czolgosz was so evident, its elements so repulsive, and its deliberation in its association with anarchist views so manifest, that a perfunctory prosecution would have sufficed to secure a verdict entailing the extreme penalty of the law.”

“He struck at social order and popular institutions, but he had as fair a trial as if he had been guilty of the least offense known to the statutes.”

“The trial of Czolgosz at Buffalo, conducted amid the whirlwind of popular passion with perfect calmness, dignity and equity, and with a strict observance of all securities for justice, is the best protest against anarchism which has hitherto been made in connection with this deplorable affair.”

“The vindication of justice in his person has been in every way creditable to the bench and bar of this State.”

“Every form required by law to assure a fair trial was scrupulously observed.”

“It was with a great sense of relief that in the trial of this case, on which the attention of the world was centered, our country escaped the humiliation of such a jangle as the typical criminal lawyer sometimes creates in a capital case.”

“The trial of the assassin was expeditious and conducted without any sensational features. The country was spared the disgraceful doings of the Guiteau trial. The medical profession was spared the mortification of witnessing the self-advertising of any so-called medical experts. The blame was placed just where it belonged, upon the moral obliquity of the prisoner, and his false conceptions of his conduct as a member of civilized society.”

“There was something childish—an undeveloped, stunted intelligence—shown in [the defendant’s] demeanor.”

“The course of justice was swift but measured.”

“The case was characterized by orderliness, dispatch and decency throughout.”

“It is universally considered that the whole proceedings from the arrest of Czolgosz to his execution were conducted with the utmost dignity, order and decency. There was ample time to prepare for the trial on both sides, and yet but ten days elapsed between the death of the President at the hands of Czolgosz, and his conviction after two days’ trial,—a record most unusual and remarkable, and reflecting great credit upon the Court, the District Attorney and the prisoner’s counsel.”

“Having in view the nature and importance of the case, the fact that no testimony was offered on the defendant’s behalf and that practically no defense was made, beyond a perfunctory examination of jurors and a mild cross-examination of some of the people’s witnesses, which was limited to efforts to elicit information respecting the President’s condition during his illness and of his body after death, and a summing up by one of the counsel—Judge Lewis—which consisted mainly of an apology for appearing as counsel for the defendant and a touching eulogy of his distinguished victim, renders the case, in this respect, a unique one in the annals of criminal jurisprudence.”

“The recent trial of Czolgosz, at Buffalo, was an illustration of what a criminal trial ought to be, and as an example, it cannot fail to be of great value to our country.”

“In an ordinary trial what evidence there might be in the prisoner’s case would be considered with deliberation and thoroughness, but public opinion had indignantly condemned Czolgosz in advance, and no court and jury could be expected to stand up and oppose the will of the people, and hence in an eight and a half hours’ trial, with no defense, he was condemned unheard.”

“. . . I have yet to hear a lawyer say that the distinguished members of the profession who undertook the defence of that wretched man were blameworthy in not going beyond what they did.”

“These prompt but perfectly orderly and dispassionate proceedings were a great credit to the State of New York.”

“. . . the boasted trial of Czolgosz was one of the most impudent shams ever lauded as the genuine article.”

“The trial was purely formal. The prisoner’s attorneys, yielding to popular prejudice against their client, did not secure the delay which a case of such importance required.”

“Whether a fair study of Czolgosz was possible in the state of public excitement and resentment is open to question. A comparison of the rapidity with which his case was hurried through, with the drag of ordinary murder trials, is suggestive.”

“The only decent reporter present at the trial—a woman—relates that she was so overcome by the farcical proceedings that she was unfitted to do newspaper work for months. Czolgosz impressed her, she says, as a visionary, totally oblivious to his surroundings.”

“The man was really tried by public opinion long before his formal trial in court.”

“This farce must have made the angels weep.”

“His legal rights were protected, his counsel saw that he had a fair trial, that no incompetent testimony was introduced; the consequence was that in an expeditious but decent, orderly manner he was tried and punished for his crime.”

“The trial of Leon F. Czolgosz, the assassin, which began September 23, 1901, was a model of dignity, deliberation, consideration for the criminal’s legal rights, and swift justice.”

“I really do not think in all my experience that I have ever seen such a travesty of justice. . . .”