Destiny of the Republic - Candice Millard [121]
Guiteau would follow the lead of M’Naghten, Oxford, Sickles, and Stokes, and attempt to use his insanity to save his life. Legally, he was allowed this argument, and there was nothing anyone could do to prevent it. It was clear to all involved in the case, however, that the American people would accept no verdict but guilty, no sentence but death. “Guiteau should have a fair trial. Everything that can be urged in his behalf should be patiently heard. It is the right of the meanest thing that bears a human form,” one editorial argued. “But such a trial, such a hearing, in a community of intelligent beings can have but one result.”
The case of the United States v. Charles J. Guiteau began on the morning of November 14, less than two months after Garfield’s death. Guiteau’s attorney was his brother-in-law, George Scoville, who had come to his rescue countless times in the past with a place to live and loans to keep him alive and out of prison. Scoville was a patent lawyer, and knew almost nothing about the criminal justice system, but he was one of the few lawyers in the country willing to represent the president’s assassin. Even Scoville admitted, “If I didn’t think the unfortunate man was insane, I would not defend him at all.”
As difficult as it was to find a competent defense attorney, it had been nearly impossible to assemble a dispassionate jury. When asked if he would be able to render an impartial verdict in the trial of Guiteau, one prospective juror had replied, “I think he ought to be hung or burnt or something else.… I don’t think there is any evidence in the United States to convince me any other way.” It took three days of jury selection and 175 men to find 12 jurors. In the end, however, Guiteau faced a jury that was, if not unbiased, at least diverse. Deciding his fate were a machinist, two grocers, three merchants, an iron worker, a retired businessman, a restaurant manager, a cigar dealer, and two plasterers. Eleven of the men were white, and one was black.
Before the trial began at 10:00 a.m., a crush of people gathered outside the courtroom, clutching tickets and staring at the closed doors. Deputy marshals wearing bright red badges surrounded the throng, checking the authenticity of their tickets and examining media passes, which, “for the first time in anyone’s memory,” journalists were required to carry.
The courtroom itself had been renovated just for the trial. A temporary floor had been installed, and more seating added. Half the seats were reserved for lawyers, distinguished guests—a group that included even Frederick Douglass—and journalists. The rest were first come, first served. Those fortunate enough to find seats were so worried that they would lose them during the noon recess that they carried picnic baskets when they arrived in the morning, and had their lunch on their laps.
Guiteau had planned to make an opening statement that day, but the judge refused to allow it. Frustrated, he turned to the long row of reporters seated behind him and handed them his statement. It was not a defense of his actions, or even an argument for insanity, but an indictment of the men who were, he argued, the president’s true murderers—his doctors.
The situation, Guiteau insisted, was perfectly clear. “General Garfield died from malpractice,” he wrote. “According to his own physicians, he was not fatally shot. The doctors who mistreated him ought to bear the odium of his death, and not his assailant. They ought to be indicted for murdering James A. Garfield, and not me.” A few days later, Guiteau would himself announce his argument to the courtroom, interrupting a witness who was describing the scene at the train station when Garfield was shot. “I deny the killing,