SUMMARY:  This is my Chaps and Spurs entry for April.  The topic is temporary insanity which was introduced in that era and tried out as a defense at a fictional trial in Virginia City.  The jury is going to have to deal with a complex issue so the call goes out for better educated citizens, and guess who gets tapped for jury duty?

Rating:  PG  Word count = 1678

Lady Justice

Not a cloud in the sky, a warm that was pleasant, and a breeze just strong enough to make you feel relaxed: Sheriff Roy Coffee couldn’t have been more pleased. It was the kind of day that made Adam Cartwright almost mellow, and he needed him that way because he had a request that was almost an order and knew how the oldest of the Cartwright sons usually took those. Riding in to the yard of the Ponderosa, he found Adam sitting on the porch playing a chess match with his father. It seemed so appropriate considering what he wanted to ask him to do.

“Roy, what brings you out here on a Sunday?”

“Ben, I’d like to say it was to visit with you, and I have time for that too, but I got a question I got sent here to ask Adam.”

By the way Adam sat there with his long legs stretched out and propped up on that extra chair, Roy knew that he was well aware of what Roy was going to call for him to do. He had probably heard enough of the story at church services that morning, but he was going to force Roy to make the petition.

“You know we got that murder case starting in a couple of days. Now that lawyer of his is planning to file one of them temporary insanity pleas like we all just read about in the Enterprise. It’s a fool thing, I think, but he’s gonna try it anyway. That Tom Watson’s got enough money to bring some doctors in here to testify about it. The prosecutor wants me to round up the best-educated jury I can for this trial. That boy ain’t had but a few cases yet under his belt and most of them have been for little things like some petty theft and some property damage. He’s gonna need all the help he can get with a jury that can understand everything likely to be said in that courtroom. The judge now isn’t taking kindly to any man saying no to him asking neither.”

“All right.”

Ben was as surprised as Roy. Adam looked at both and smiled. He rather liked doing that to them and had expected the summons. He hadn’t slept much thinking about it and wondering if he was one of the men who should be considering if a man could be driven to insanity by circumstances. Suspecting the new prosecutor would want to handpick the jurors for such a case, he had anticipated the call and how he would respond so he could be ready.

“It should be a lot more interesting than mudholes, broken fences, and the smelly cattle I’ve been working with every day lately.”

They had to agree to that, but Ben noted that the smile that Adam had didn’t seem to have any good humor in it. It was more the smile one might see on a man facing execution. He didn’t understand Adam would react that way considering the light tone of his responses to Roy’s request. Of course, he knew better than to ask. Adam would tell him when he was ready to talk or he might never explain. He was good at keeping secrets.

The trial was certainly long by the standards of the day. It took three days for all the witnesses to testify and all the evidence to be admitted. There was only one witness to the crime itself. He was a neighbor who came over to ask a favor and saw Tom Watson beating his father Jack to death with an axe handle. Running away from the scene, the neighbor had fallen and hit his head delaying the information getting to Roy. No one questioned that he had seen what he saw though much was made of what he saw of how Tom looked and acted during the assault. Of course there was also Tom who testified and then went through a long cross-examination.

When the jury got the case on the third day after an impassioned plea and summation by the defense and a not so impressive closing argument by the prosecution, the majority was ready to vote not guilty almost immediately. Adam was not. He and a few others weren’t so sure that temporary insanity fit the case. The foreman of the jury was upset.

“Is it your pride, Adam? Did you want to be foreman? Here, you can have the job if you’ll vote with us.” The foreman threw down the papers he had been given and stood staring at Adam.

“That’s not it.” Adam was angry that the foreman would even make such a suggestion but had to remain calm if he wanted to convince the others. “This case doesn’t make sense.”

The foreman wasn’t done. “That’s right. The mildest mannered man we all know took an axe handle to his father over a chess tournament he lost. He beat him to death and then went home like nothing happened. That fits with what those doctors said about temporary insanity.”

“Does it, or did Tom read the same paper we did and come up with a good plan? He waited until it was dark so no one would see him go there. He took that axe handle with him. Was he already temporarily insane as he waited at his home? It doesn’t seem that ordinary men would calmly sit at home and then pick up an axe handle and sneak through the dark if they were so angry they couldn’t think straight. He went in the back door where no one would see him and later left the same way. He hid the weapon and the bloody clothes. Now that seems to me he knew that he did something wrong and he was trying to make sure no one found out. He took a bath to clean himself up. It seemed he knew what he was doing the whole time except, as he claimed, he was insane for that one minute while he was beating his father to death.”

The room had gotten quiet and Adam could see that the others were beginning to connect the facts the way he had and the prosecutor had failed to do in his closing statement. One man looked up and brought up a point Adam had neglected.

“He didn’t seem to have no sorrow or regret that his father was dead either. If it was so not normal for him to kill his father, he should have felt horrible about it. He should show shame and regret. Heck, if I had something like that hanging over my head, I’d be begging forgiveness all day long. I don’t know how I could look any man in the eye and say I ought to be forgiven even if that was what I needed the most.”

The dam was broken. They were beginning to understand what Adam had experienced. When you lost control, when your rational thought processes shut down, and when you reacted without any of the limits you had been taught, you could not do anything as calmly and with the cool detachment that Tom had conducted himself that night. When it was over, recrimination and self-loathing for acting like an animal were almost enough to make you want to end your life not do everything to make yourself look good. Adam got quiet and let the others take over the discussion.

“Yeah, when he testified, he talked about Jack like it was any man not his father.”

“You know, you’re right about that other stuff too. If he was so insane about losing, he would have marched down that street and up onto that porch and right through that front door.”

“You’re right! He wouldn’t have been sneaking down the street hiding and then sneaking in the back door where no one could see him.”

“What he did sounds more like somebody who is carefully planning something.”

Another hour of talking through those points and they had their verdict. The look of shock on the defendant’s face at the guilty verdict was priceless as was the judge’s look of pride in the jury. The judge knew that juries are like living organisms and can grow and develop. This one clearly had some good intelligence in it. The sentence was death by hanging. The defendant wasn’t going to inherit his father’s fortune.

That night, Adam sat alone by the fireplace declining invitations to play checkers or chess or to do anything else. Guessing some of the issues plaguing his son, Ben walked over and put a hand on his shoulder. They were as quiet as statues for a time until Adam leaned forward.

“I got a man sentenced to death, today, Pa.”

“No, Tom got himself sentenced to death today, son. You did your job as it was expected you would. Lady Justice only asked that you listen and impartially review the facts and render a judgment based on those facts. Tom supplied the facts of the case and created his own fate.”

“I guess we all do that, don’t we?” And Adam thought about a crazy man in the desert and who had determined what. He stayed up late despite his father’s words invoking the protection of Lady Justice. The darkness always brought the fear, and she couldn’t help him with that. This night, the trepidation was stronger than ever. Shivering though it was warm, he worried that he would dream of the light fading in one condemned man’s eyes as a rope took his life while a demented man howled with glee at that scene.

Tags: Adam Cartwright, Ben Cartwright