The Trial of Lizzie Borden(33)
Selecting a jury, Boston Globe
Knowlton and Moody conferred and decided whether or not to challenge jurors. Knowlton, the Fall River Daily Herald declared, “possesses the faculty of making a rapid and accurate judgment of human nature. His powers of reading character in the countenance are strongly developed.” But he did not leave anything to chance. Each of the men in the pool were investigated. The New Bedford Evening Standard reported: “It is said that so thorough has the work been that each side knows the opinion of almost every man summoned.” For example, Knowlton’s notes reveal the following entry about the forty-fifth prospect (and ultimate juror number six), William Westcott: “American. Farmer. Independent in Politics. Comes to Congregational church. Not interested in religion. Married and second wife. Has not talked about the case.” The conclusion: “Good practical man.”
On the defense side, Jennings took charge. He sized up each man, looked at his notes, and indicated via a quick shake of his head whether Lizzie Borden should announce her acceptance or rejection of the prospect. (Julian Ralph thought they looked like “schoolgirls holding a pantomime conversation.”) Lizzie used the railing to haul herself upright, moistened her lips, and spoke when required. Otherwise, she observed the action silently, wiping the perspiration from her face. Her black Japanese fan served a dual purpose: when she was not fanning herself, she chewed on the handle, apparently heedless of her observers. Initially, it seemed that the defense would challenge all prospective jurors of Irish descent. But ultimately John C. Flynn of Taunton was seated. Knowlton was pleased: his investigators had pronounced him a “good man: a very intelligent Irishman.” After nine hours and 101 names, a jury emerged. Joe Howard said: “Every one of them wears a mustache, a majority of them are very tall with sunburned necks and not over intelligent in expression.” He added: “They are not a jolly looking set of men.” The judges chose white-maned real estate owner Charles I. Richards of North Attleborough as foreman to preside over a jury of six farmers, three mechanics, and two manufacturers. Richards, “a kindly featured man with a full head of hair,” had been considered “doubtful” by the prosecution’s investigators.
The jurors were permitted to send telegrams to their families to inform them of their likely extended service. In addition to Mr. Richards, the jurors were George Potter (Westport), William F. Dean (Taunton), Frederick C. Wilbar (Raynham), Lemuel K. Wilbur (Easton), John Wilbur (Somerset), William Westcott (Seekonk), Louis Hodges (Taunton), Augustus Swift (New Bedford), Frank G. Cole (Attleborough), John C. Flynn (Taunton), and Allen H. Wordell (Dartmouth). Flynn was the youngest at thirty-five and Hodges the eldest at fifty-nine. These were the twelve men who, as Elizabeth Jordan wrote, “under the legal guidance of three judges and the misguidance of six lawyers,” would decide Lizzie Borden’s fate. All were solid citizens. One paper declared it as good a jury “as could be desired or obtained.” The New Bedford Evening Journal commented on “their strong and typical New England faces.” Joseph Howard imagined them “unaccustomed . . . to metropolitan experiences of any nature.” But they had one salient experience in common: like the judges, they were married men, heads of households. Most were fathers.
After swearing their oaths, the jurors were taken to the Parker House hotel, their home for the duration of the trial. Their meals, like their accommodation, was paid for by the county; each would earn $3 a day for his service. They were assigned rooms in the north section of the third floor, specially partitioned for their exclusive use. The partition included a door secured with a Yale lock, its single key in the custody of the deputy sheriff. The attorneys were housed on the second floor at opposite ends of the corridor; the judges’ rooms separated the adversaries. Lizzie Borden’s own housing continued to pose difficulties. She contracted bronchitis after her arraignment in May. She had recovered by the start of the trial but was nonetheless housed in the central jail rather than the county prison. The Fall River Daily Herald explained: “It is not considered to be decent, however, to lock up at night any prisoner who has been passing the daylight hours under the terribly nervous strain which will naturally accompany the coming one in a cell room where her next door neighbor is likely to be a howling drunkard, full of remorse and the vision of things uncanny.”
TUESDAY, JUNE 6, 1893
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Perhaps discouraged by the rigorous crowd control of the opening day, fewer spectators gathered for the second day of the trial. But those who came were a determined bunch; a small queue had already formed at 6:00 a.m. The spectators had a long wait. The jury arrived at 8:30 a.m., escorted by Deputy Sheriff Nickerson and Deputy Sheriff Arnold in the rear. Sheriff Wright entered with Lizzie Borden at three minutes before 9:00 a.m.
As the clerk read the long indictment, Lizzie Borden looked at the ground: “Every word seeming to fall like an additional weight upon [her] shoulders.” But once Moody rose to give the opening statement, he had her full attention. Moody laid out the facts of the murders, the setting of the Borden house and its location in town, and the inescapable conclusion that Lizzie Borden must be responsible. Moody, in Howard’s view, had “the rare gift of common sense, and without attempts at vocal gymnastics tells a clean cut, well-matured history of the crime, adroitly weaving therein his theory of the guilt of the prisoner and its whys and wherefores.”