JUSTICE FITZGERALD DEALS BLOW WHEN HE TELLS THE TWELVE “GOOD MEN AND TRUE” THEY MUST IGNORE THE “UNWRITTEN LAW”—READS THE STATUTE GOVERNING INSANITY AS A DEFENSE—BURDEN OF PROOF OF MADNESS PLACED ON THE DEFENDANT—TELLS WHAT VERDICTS MAY BE RENDERED—“YOU MUST BE GUIDED ENTIRELY ON THE EVIDENCE; CLAMOR, PREJUDICE, OR SYMPATHY MUST NOT PREVAIL.”
Upon the heels of District Attorney Jerome’s closing address, Justice Fitzgerald dealt a terrific blow to the defense in his charge to the jury. Every word that he uttered seemed to the lawyers attending the trial to be a plea that the jurors ignore the most telling points of Delmas’ address and confine themselves strictly to the facts and the law on the statute books, ignoring the “unwritten law.”
Thaw heard the charge with rapidly paling face, and he almost collapsed when the judge said that the defendant must prove his insanity before he could look for a verdict of acquittal. This charge and the bitter closing speech of Jerome so worked upon the feelings of Harry that he was in a sad condition when he was taken back to the prisoner’s room. A call from his wife, however, cheered him up, and he said:
“Well, dearie, we must make the best of it, anyway. Cheer up, little girl, everything will come out all right.”
The members of the Thaw family were low in spirits, especially when they heard that the keeper of the prisoners’ room had said:
“The judge’s cold-blooded charge has scared Harry half to death. He has finally been made to realize what he is ‘up against.’”
The charge of Justice Fitzgerald was as follows:
“Gentlemen of the Jury, it now becomes my duty to give you such instructions as are necessary to enable you to perform your duty as jurors and to define for your information the legal principles by which you are to be governed in reaching your conclusion of the evidence.
“It is particularly gratifying to me that you were selected by the people and the defense as fair-minded men, after the examination of 337 men and the peremptory challenges on each side had been exhausted. The care with which you were severally selected to ascertain the condition of mind of each of you as an impartial juror must have impressed you with the spirit of justice. It must have impressed you with that spirit of justice with which the statutes regulating the acts of the orderly are governed.
“The admonition so frequently given at the close of the sessions of this trial were given in accordance with the law, that you might remain impartial. Let me impress on you the importance of the issue you are to decide.