Destiny of the Republic - By Candice Millard Page 0,112

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, if your honor please,” he said. “We admit the shooting.”

Day after day, as the trial slowly advanced, Guiteau repeatedly tried to insert himself into the proceedings. Often, his outbursts were harsh, humiliating critiques of his brother-in-law’s legal skill. “Now, don’t spoil the matter on cross-examination,” he shouted at Scoville at one point. “That is the way you generally do. You spoil everything by cross-examination.… You are a jackass on the question of cross-examination. I must tell you that right in public, to your face.”

When he wasn’t attacking his own attorney, Guiteau attempted to question witnesses, refute testimony, address the judge directly, and even make public appeals for legal and financial assistance. After learning that a fund had been established for Lucretia and her children, he made an announcement to the courtroom. “The rich men of New York gave Mrs. Garfield $200,000 or $300,000,” he said. “It was a splendid thing—a noble thing. Now, I want them to give me some money.”

Finally, Scoville himself asked the court to force his client to keep quiet. Judge Cox, determined that there not be any possible grounds for appeal, was reluctant to remove Guiteau from the courtroom. There was little he could do, therefore, beyond issuing repeated warnings and moving the defendant farther from the witness stand. Guiteau’s “declarations,” the judge would later complain, “could not have been prevented except by resorting to the process of gagging him.”

The more Guiteau spoke, the more apparent his insanity became. He was highly intelligent and surprisingly articulate, but his mind did not work like that of a sane man. “All the links in the chain are there,” George Beard, a psychiatrist who would interview Guiteau on four separate occasions, explained, “but they are not joined, but rather tossed about hither and thither, singly, like quoits, each one good and strong of itself, but without relation to any other.” When Guiteau speaks, Beard said, “his insanity forces itself constantly to the front, breaking in upon his eloquence.”

Guiteau spent nearly a week on the stand, talking about his childhood, his years at the commune, his life as a traveling evangelist, and his motivations for shooting the president. The prosecution did everything in its power to prove that he was not insane, but