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Sep. 11th, 2015 09:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kittydesade"...The trial commenced after the judge refused to allow the third lawyer to withdraw from his post at the defense, saying that if he allowed every lawyer in the city to withdraw from a case for which he felt disquiet and a certain squeamishness there would be no murder trials left and the course of justice would be irreparably perverted. Throughout the lecture which, according to the testimony of several witnesses and their pocketwatches, was a good twenty minutes long, "Butcher" George Logrood sat without flinching, indeed without any expression at all, while jurists, witnesses, and spectators fidgeted and whispered amongst each other. The third lawyer remained for the duration of the trial under protest; he was rumored to have drowned himself after, although there are accounts that report his death as misadventure with a generous assistance from the local tavern's piss-bucket.
Following this thorough admonishment the judge declared a recess, during which the courtroom was to be cleared of all persons, who would be then allowed back in once they had provided adequate identification to justify their presence during the trial. This lengthy procedure would be repeated at the start of every day, causing a a considerable delay and drawing accusations from several newspapers at the time that the judge was drawing the trial out to establish himself as a man of righteousness against a hardened criminal. They pointed out that Judge Richter had made noises in private conversations in gentleman's clubs and behind closed doors of running for public office after the trial was done. No witnesses of any name or repute would step forward to admit to saying this, but the rumors stuck, and whether or not he had hoped to run in an election immediately after the trial of "Butcher" George he would not hold office until twenty years later, at the venerable age of seventy two.
When the trial reconvened after the lunch recess the charges were read out. They were lengthy, even limited to what had been admitted by Logrood and what had been proven by the police detectives at the scene and through subsequent investigation. Several members of the Neapolitan Mafia had also been called up to the police station, and although none of them would have admitted to hiring Logrood for the purposes of intimidation or murder (which amounted to the same thing as far as Logrood was concerned, the only difference being the subject to be murdered) they were nonetheless placed under arrest when their names were brought before the self-styled Butcher, who readily admitted to the crimes performed in service to the Neapolitans. Later, a newspaperman working for Hearst spoke of George Logrood's testimony thus:
"He appeared neither proud nor ashamed of his actions, reading them out as though they were a list of qualifications for a clerking position. In his view, he had a set of skills which he had put to use as demanded, and the reticence of his employers to admit to their crimes once irrefutably proven to have engaged him in that pursuit only solidified his contempt of them. Conversely, to the jurors and witnesses, to the young policeman in his first year who had to withdraw in tears from the witness stand, and to the innocent relatives of the deceased who attended every day of the trial, he appeared most sympathetic and even gave them the courtesy of turning his back so they would not have to look on the face of the man who had murdered their loved ones."
According to the court notes and the contemporaneous accounts, Logrood performed most of the work of the defense, requiring his lawyer's help only for the legal terms with which to ask for a mercifully swift death. The majority opinion of both legal and regional historians is that the trial was drawn out not by the judge or the defense, but by the prosecution, who wanted to make sure the entire country as it was at the time knew what had happened in New Amsterdam, and that they were making every effort to see justice done. Interestingly, the prosecutor neither ran for public office nor made any attempt to profit off of his notoriety later; he seemingly vanished from the history books within a year of the trial, although records have been restored indicating that he took holy orders and became a frontier priest."
-- The Bloody Tale of Butcher George. (1997). In E. Wegen (Ed.), Blood, Sweat, and Tears: A History of the New Amsterdam Underworld (2nd ed., pp. 45-46). New Amsterdam: Ravenswood Press.
Following this thorough admonishment the judge declared a recess, during which the courtroom was to be cleared of all persons, who would be then allowed back in once they had provided adequate identification to justify their presence during the trial. This lengthy procedure would be repeated at the start of every day, causing a a considerable delay and drawing accusations from several newspapers at the time that the judge was drawing the trial out to establish himself as a man of righteousness against a hardened criminal. They pointed out that Judge Richter had made noises in private conversations in gentleman's clubs and behind closed doors of running for public office after the trial was done. No witnesses of any name or repute would step forward to admit to saying this, but the rumors stuck, and whether or not he had hoped to run in an election immediately after the trial of "Butcher" George he would not hold office until twenty years later, at the venerable age of seventy two.
When the trial reconvened after the lunch recess the charges were read out. They were lengthy, even limited to what had been admitted by Logrood and what had been proven by the police detectives at the scene and through subsequent investigation. Several members of the Neapolitan Mafia had also been called up to the police station, and although none of them would have admitted to hiring Logrood for the purposes of intimidation or murder (which amounted to the same thing as far as Logrood was concerned, the only difference being the subject to be murdered) they were nonetheless placed under arrest when their names were brought before the self-styled Butcher, who readily admitted to the crimes performed in service to the Neapolitans. Later, a newspaperman working for Hearst spoke of George Logrood's testimony thus:
"He appeared neither proud nor ashamed of his actions, reading them out as though they were a list of qualifications for a clerking position. In his view, he had a set of skills which he had put to use as demanded, and the reticence of his employers to admit to their crimes once irrefutably proven to have engaged him in that pursuit only solidified his contempt of them. Conversely, to the jurors and witnesses, to the young policeman in his first year who had to withdraw in tears from the witness stand, and to the innocent relatives of the deceased who attended every day of the trial, he appeared most sympathetic and even gave them the courtesy of turning his back so they would not have to look on the face of the man who had murdered their loved ones."
According to the court notes and the contemporaneous accounts, Logrood performed most of the work of the defense, requiring his lawyer's help only for the legal terms with which to ask for a mercifully swift death. The majority opinion of both legal and regional historians is that the trial was drawn out not by the judge or the defense, but by the prosecution, who wanted to make sure the entire country as it was at the time knew what had happened in New Amsterdam, and that they were making every effort to see justice done. Interestingly, the prosecutor neither ran for public office nor made any attempt to profit off of his notoriety later; he seemingly vanished from the history books within a year of the trial, although records have been restored indicating that he took holy orders and became a frontier priest."
-- The Bloody Tale of Butcher George. (1997). In E. Wegen (Ed.), Blood, Sweat, and Tears: A History of the New Amsterdam Underworld (2nd ed., pp. 45-46). New Amsterdam: Ravenswood Press.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-09-12 04:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-09-12 07:58 pm (UTC)