Killer Colt (32 page)
Authors: Harold Schechter
“We leave his cause with you,” concluded Selden, “requesting you to bear in mind that justice as well as mercy is a portion of the attributes of the criminal law.”
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• • •
It was already a few minutes past 7:00 p.m. when Selden returned to his seat. District Attorney Whiting was on his feet at once. Initially, said Whiting, he “supposed that he could complete his remarks in two short hours.” Selden’s argument, however, had “ranged so widely that it is now impossible to say how long it will take. If the Court will hear me through in my argument, I will proceed now. Otherwise I would ask to have an adjournment until the morning.”
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Although he had hoped to get through all three remaining summations, Kent had no choice. With a bang of the gavel, he adjourned until 10:00 the next morning, when the trial would enter its climactic day.
T
outed from its opening day as the most riveting show in town—a spectacle of “unsurpassed interest”—the Colt trial had more than lived up to its billing. Now that it was nearing the end of its run, James Gordon Bennett took the opportunity to offer an appreciative look back at “this extraordinary drama.”
In a lengthy editorial published on the morning of Saturday, January 29, he enumerated the features that had made it so special, beginning with some raw statistics: three full days to “procure a jury from three hundred persons”; six days “in hearing the evidence”; ninety witnesses examined, seventy-nine for the prosecution and eleven for the defense; a day and a half “consumed by three of the counsel to sum up.” Still to come was the closing of Mr. Whiting, expected to “occupy the whole of five hours this morning till the recess. After that, Judge Kent will deliver his charge and the case will go to the jury about dusk this evening.”
What really made it memorable, however, were its many dramatic highlights. “Altogether,” gushed Bennett, “this has been one of the most singular trials that ever took place in this or any other country.” A year earlier, the city had been transfixed by another shocking murder, this one perpetrated by a New Jersey carpenter named Peter Robinson. On Thursday, December 3, 1840, Robinson had lured a creditor, a banker named Abraham Suydam, to his house in New Brunswick. After knocking Suydam out with a mallet, Robinson dragged the unconscious victim into the cellar, bound him, gagged him, and left him lying there for three days. Early Saturday
morning, Robinson “went to the house, dug a grave three feet deep before his still living victim, threw him into it alive, then struck him over the head with the spade, dashing in his skull.” His trial in April 1841 had “excited a great sensation” and his subsequent hanging “was a gala event in New Brunswick.”
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The Robinson-Suydam case certainly didn’t lack for gruesome thrills. Judged purely as theater, however, Colt’s trial easily eclipsed it—“threw the Peter Robinson affair far into the shade,” as Bennett put it. “If this be not the strangest trial ever known, then we have yet to learn the fact.”
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• • •
Bennett’s main rival, Moses Beach’s New York
Sun
, commemorated the imminent end of the Colt trial in its own exploitive way. Prominently displayed in its Saturday edition was the following advertisement:
As soon as the Verdict of the Jury is rendered in the case of John C. Colt, we shall publish from this office the Trial Complete in pamphlet form. This pamphlet will comprise
1st—The evidence in detail as it has appeared from day to day in the
Sun
.
2nd—Faithful sketches and reports of the opening and summing up of Counsel on either side—which, from the well-known professional reputation of Messrs. Whiting and Selden, will doubtless present a greater forensic display than has been exhibited in this city for many years.
3rd—The charge of Judge Kent.
4th—Six Engravings, illustrative of scenes and characters which appear in the history of this dreadful tragedy.
“Bargain priced” at six cents, the sixteen-page souvenir pamphlet would make a handsome memento of the gruesome murder case and—as the advertisement noted—could “be sent to any part of the Union for newspaper postage only.”
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• • •
With the denouement of the “dreadful tragedy” so near at hand, the crowds turned out in force. “There was a perfect mob around the City Hall from morning till night,” Bennett wrote. “There were also about forty or fifty females in the court room all day,” he added, marveling at a phenomenon that would become increasingly familiar in years to come: the high percentage of women spectators found at sensational murder trials, and their lively interest in the lurid.
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Bennett’s estimate that the district attorney’s summing up “would occupy the whole of five hours” was off the mark, though not by very much. Whiting ended up speaking from 10:00 until 2:15.
Whiting began by angrily rebutting the charges that the defense lawyers had leveled against him. Far from having “persecuted their client to death,” Whiting insisted that he had been scrupulously fair to the defendant. “Would to God I could this day look into the testimony and ask you to pronounce the prisoner guiltless. But we live in a world where justice must be administered or society is dead.”
If anyone were guilty of having “wrongfully conducted” themselves during the trial, said Whiting, it was counsel for the defense. From the very first, “they had the confession in their pocket, and yet they went through long and labored cross-examinations of witnesses who they knew from the bottom of their hearts told the truth—and then they abuse
me
for doing my duty in the case! Suppose they had said, when the trial commenced, ‘We admit the killing of Samuel Adams and you need not labor to prove it’—how much time would have been saved!”
Knowing how hard it is for most people to send a fellow human being to his death, Whiting, like his assistant before him, reminded the jurors that they must not think about “the consequences” of their verdict but “simply to enquire into the circumstances of the case—to pronounce whether John C. Colt took the life of Adams, and if so, under what circumstances and in what temper. We allege that this act was committed with design, and if not this, that it comes under the provision of the statute that killing under circumstances which show a disregard for human life shall be accounted murder.” Killing another human being did not in itself constitute murder, said Whiting. “It is killing with an evil mind, with a bloodthirsty heart.” And for
such a crime, not only the laws of man but the laws of God demanded blood retribution. “ ‘He that smiteth a man will surely die,’ ” quoted Whiting, “ ‘and he that comes upon his neighbor with guile to slay him shall be destroyed,’ saith the Almighty.”
Proceeding with a review of the case, Whiting raised a series of questions designed to dismantle the defense’s version of events. If Adams had been so angry when he heard that Colt intended to keep the proceeds from the trade sale, why hadn’t he proceeded straight to the Granite Building to confront Colt? Why had he taken such a roundabout way? Surely “his passion, assuming he had any, would have had time to cool, as the heat of the iron from the forge of the blacksmith when exposed to the air.”
Why was the hatchet “laid carefully upon Colt’s table,” within easy reach? Even granting that “a quarrel had taken place as alleged,” wouldn’t Colt “have been more likely, unless bent upon murder, to strike with a chair?” Reviewing the fearsome injuries inflicted on Adams, Whiting insisted that—contrary to the representation of Colt as “everything mild, kind, and affectionate”—the sheer savagery of the wounds was proof of his “brutal temper.” After all, “a blow upon the arm would have answered his purpose, for it would have released the grasp. He had no right to revenge an insult—even assuming that one was given—in this terrible way.”
But in fact, Whiting declared, there was no proof at all that Colt had been assaulted. “Had the quarrel taken place as said, would the words ‘you lie’ have been made in a low voice?” asked Whiting. “Wouldn’t they have been heard by Mr. Wheeler and his pupil?” If the prisoner had really sought out his brother at the City Hotel after the murder, why hadn’t Sam Colt been called to the stand to corroborate that claim? If Adams had grabbed Colt’s neckerchief and twisted it so hard that he could hardly breathe, “where was the neckcloth? Why wasn’t it presented as evidence?” And what about the black-and-blue mark on Colt’s neck? If Adams had really been strangling Colt, significant bruises “would have been left on his throat. We hear of a trifling mark, but nothing such as would have appeared there.”
Under the pretense of sympathizing with Caroline for the harsh way that John had treated her on the night of the murder, Whiting managed once again to remind the jurors of Colt’s debauched and unfeeling character:
We hear of Caroline Henshaw going to his bedside. She asked him, as Portia did Brutus when he came from the Senate House after committing a murder, what ailed him. He pushed her away, and she dared not, after that, ask this kind friend to see the marks on his neck—she dared not speak. She approached his bed, he threw her from it. She knew she was not his wife and dared not press it. But do not blame her, do not blame that slight girl. Blame the one whose heart was such that he could seduce her and keep her in abjection. The poor unfortunate girl must go down to the grave with the stain that is upon her. Let this be a warning to women—let them not put their earthly and eternal happiness in the keeping of such a man as that!
Turning to the issue of motive, Whiting stressed that the prosecution “was not bound to prove that Colt’s motive was sufficient to induce him to kill. The law says that ‘instigation of the devil’ is a sufficient motive. It is impossible to assign definite and what we would call adequate motives for all deeds like this. If we prove there is premeditated design, that is sufficient.”
He then defined precisely “what was meant by premeditated design.” Contrary to common belief, it did not mean that the murder was planned far in advance. “All that is necessary is to show that there was time after the arm was raised to exercise reflection,” explained Whiting. “Does the law require it shall have been a long time before? No—not even a single minute if the intention is to produce death and the blow is unnecessarily produced.”
In concluding, Whiting allowed for the first time that the prisoner was stricken with remorse. His words brought tears to a number of people in the courtroom, including John himself, who leaned “on the back of his counsel’s chair, hands over his eyes, and freely wept.”
“I believe that life was taken by John C. Colt,” said Whiting solemnly. “I believe that, if by laying down his own life, he could restore that man to his family, he would gladly do it. But does that excuse him for taking the life of Adams? You have a simple duty to perform. I have endeavored faithfully to do mine. There are in this city three hundred thousand souls committed
to our care, and much rests upon us. Act in a manner that you can answer to your consciences hereafter. Deal justly—but deal firmly—between the people and the prisoner.”
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• • •
Whiting’s summation was followed by an abbreviated recess. When court readjourned at 3:30 p.m., Judge Kent—pronouncing it his duty “to close the last scene of this most interesting trial”—delivered his charge to the jury.
After offering the obligatory words of praise for the “patience and good feelings” displayed by the jurors “through the vicissitudes of this protracted trial,” he turned at once to an issue raised by Dudley Selden: the possible effect that public outrage—“the excitement out of doors,” as Kent called it—might have on the verdict. While acknowledging that “public sentiment” had undoubtedly “been aroused by the murder,” he insisted that the court had “kept everything uninfluenced by contamination from without” and affirmed his faith that “perfect justice would be done” by the jurors, twelve men of “honest hearts and sound minds.”
Since “it is admitted that Samuel Adams was killed by John C. Colt,” continued Kent, “the only question is, was it murder, manslaughter, or excusable homicide?” Kent stressed, however, that a killing committed in a “cruel or brutal manner” can never be considered justifiable, whatever the provocation. Given the weapon Colt used and the nature of the injuries he inflicted, a “cruel and unusual manner may well have been attained in the case before you.” It was therefore Kent’s opinion that the jurors “could not acquit under this rule” and “must account this act either murder or manslaughter.”
What defined a killing as murder was premeditation—“if it was effected, not in hot blood or in a fracas, but with design to take the life of Adams.” As an example of malice aforethought, Kent cited the case of Edward Coleman, a “ragged Negro” who, on Saturday morning, July 28, 1838, “slipped up behind his wife as she was panhandling near Jolie’s Music Shop on Broadway at Walker Street, squeezed her head to his chest, and all but cut it off with a razor”—a “horrible deed that result from his belief in her infidelity.”
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