Category Archives: Trials

1896: Girl, 7, escapes penalty for swearing, drunkenness

In January 1896, a Miss Suider appeared before the Magistrates Court in Albany, Western Australia, charged with using indecent language in public.

According to a press report, the defendant said almost nothing during the hearing. On the instruction of her stepfather, she later offered an apology. The stepfather asked for the magistrate’s understanding, advising that the defendant had “made herself drunk” on homemade wine while unsupervised. Miss Suider was only seven years old:

“The language used by the child and heard by several others was said to be filthy in the extreme… His Honour had a wish to convey the child to the reformatory but instead discharged her into the custody of her step-father, who advised the court that he was headed into the bush. The magistrate warned the step-father and mother that it would be they held to account with a large fine, if the child was brought before him again.”

Source: The Australian Advertiser (Albany, WA), February 3rd 1896. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1939: Wife-slapping legal if you don’t kill her, says judge

The issue of whether or not husbands had the right to slap, spank or beat their wives befuddled American judges for much of the early 20th century. A sizeable majority of judges were opposed to domestic violence and dealt with it sternly. There are even two recorded cases of judges leaping the bench and assaulting wife-beaters themselves.

But there were also some notable dissenters. In 1939, a Chicago woman named Mary Kuhar petitioned for divorce from her husband John, a dance band drummer, on the grounds that he often slapped her. But unfortunately, she struck an unsympathetic judge, Philip J. Finnegan of the Circuit Court:

“Judge Finnegan… said it [wife-slapping] wasn’t just legal but also more or less a husband’s marital duty…

‘Under the law’, said Judge Finnegan, ‘cruelty must consist of violence great enough to endanger life. A slap does not endanger life. A man may slap his wife as hard as he wants to, if he doesn’t kill her. If more wives were slapped there would be fewer divorces.’

The judge threw out Mrs Kuhar’s claim, with a warning that “better evidence of cruelty must be presented” for him to grant divorces in the future.

Source: The Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg), February 1st 1939. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1654: Four men hold masturbation contest on Long Island

In June 1654, four men from East Hampton on Long Island were hauled before town leaders, charged with staging a masturbation contest. Accused of public self-pleasuring were two married men, Daniel Fairfield and Fulke Davis, Fulke’s young son John Davis and another teenager, John Hand Jnr.

It is not known whether they were caught ‘in the act’ or informed upon after the event. The nature of their contest is also unrecorded, as is the winner, if there was one. Whatever the details, the incident caused considerable public outrage in staid East Hampton.

The punishments, however, were light – at least in comparison to what they might have been. Fulke Davis, as the oldest and supposedly wisest of the quartet, received the harshest penalty. John Hand Jnr. was not punished at all, perhaps on account of his age:

“After extended examination and serious debate and consultation with their Saybrook neighbours, the townsmen , not deeming the offence worthy of the loss of life or limb, determine that Fulke Davis shall be placed in the pillar and receive corporal punishment; and John Davis and Daniel Fairfield shall be publicly whipped, which was done and witnessed…”

According to genealogical records, Fulke Davis had a history of rubbing his neighbours up the wrong way. His name appears in at least three different legal and property disputes. In the 1660s Fulke and his wife were chased out of East Hampton, allegedly for “molesting men” and “practising witchcraft” respectively. Fulke died in Jamaica, New York, around 1687.

Source: Records of the town of East Hampton, Suffolk County, New York, vol.1, 1639-1680. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1565: Abused mule has feet cut off, then burned alive

Historical records briefly mention a case of bestiality in 16th-century France. According to a chronicler named Ranchin, an unnamed Montpelleir farmer was surprised “behind his mule” in 1565. According to the witness, the farmer was committing an “act that cannot be mentioned”.

The farmer was put on trial, convicted of buggery and bestiality and sentenced to be burned alive. The mule, despite its passive role, was sentenced to the same fate. But according to Ranchin, the mule refused to go without a fight and turned nasty, prompting brutal action from the executioner:

“Mulus… erat vitiosus et calcitrosus. In primis abcissi fuere quatuor pedes ipsius et demun in ignem projectus et una cum homine combustus fuit.”

(‘The mule was vicious and kicking. He was dealt with first, all four of his feet were removed and cast into the fire, after which he and the man burned.’)

Source: Memoires des Antiquaires de France, v.8. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1989: Man escapes electric chair, dies on electric toilet

In 1980, a 21-year-old South Carolina man, Michael Anderson Sloan, was charged with the murder of Mary Elizabeth Royem, 24. Miss Royem’s body was found in her West Columbia apartment. She had been sexually assaulted and beaten to death with an electric iron. Sloan, who also used the name Michael Anderson Godwin, was on work release from prison (for robbing a woman at knifepoint in 1977).

Sloan went on trial in 1981, was convicted of murder and sexual assault and sentenced to die in South Carolina’s electric chair. Sloan’s death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1983 after a retrial cleared him of the sexual assault. But as fate would have it, Sloan was still destined to die on an electric chair, albeit a different one:

“Convicted murderer Michael Anderson Godwin… has died after electrocuting himself, authorities said. Godwin was seated on a metal toilet and was apparently trying to repair earphones to a television set, when he bit into the electrical cord, said State Corrections spokesman Francis Archibald.

‘It was a strange accident’, Archibald said. ‘He was sitting naked on a metal commode’… Richland County Coroner Frank Barron said Godwin was severely burned in his mouth and tongue. Barron said that an investigation is continuing but that it appears the electrocution was an accident.”

According to press reports, Sloan was a model prisoner who spent his final six years obtaining two college degrees in education. He had dreams of being released on parole and working with young people.

Source: Spartanburg Herald-Journal, March 7th 1989. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1766: Army captain suspended for a year for being insulted

Captain Benjamin Beilby, a British army officer with the 11th Foot Regiment on Minorca, was court martialed in September 1766. Beilby’s ‘crime’ was that he had been abused and insulted by another officer, Captain Robinson, but had done nothing about it. As a consequence, Beilby was charged with:

“..having received from Captain Robinson language unbecoming of the character of an officer and a gentleman, without taking proper notice of it.”

According to witnesses Robinson had been taunting and abusing Beilby for some time, on one occasion being heard to call out:

“Is that the way you march your guard, you shitten dirty fellow? Is that the way you make your men slope their arms, you dirty dog?”

Beilby’s toleration of these grievous slurs outraged his fellow officers, apparently more than the slurs themselves. Honour demanded the insulted party confront Robinson and challenge him to a duel – but Beilby had done nothing, bar write his abuser an angry letter.

Beilby was ostracised by his own colleagues, who refused to dine in the same mess as him. The court martial found Beilby guilty of neglect and he was suspended from duty for one year. When records of the court martial reached the Admiralty in London, however, it was immediately overturned. Captain Robinson was not court martialed or sanctioned for his insults.

Source: Court Martial Records, 71/50, September 1766. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1899: John F. Kennedy arrested, Tom Hanks claims reward

John F. Kennedy (c.1870-1922) was an American outlaw of the late 19th century. Like his famous presidential namesake, Kennedy was known to his friends as Jack. He started adulthood as a locomotive engineer but soon decided a much grander fortune could be made by robbing the railways rather than working on them.

With a gang of accomplices, Kennedy carried out a string of train robberies in the 1890s, robbing at least seven mail or goods trains. His experience as an engineer gave Kennedy considerable inside knowledge. He also carried out each robbery with his face covered.

Despite this, the identity of the ‘Quail Hunter’, as the serial bandit became known, was an open secret. Lawmen were well aware of Kennedy’s identity and did their utmost to put him behind bars, to no avail. He was sent to trial three times between 1896 and 1898 but escaped conviction each time, thanks to tricky lawyers, false alibis and bribed jury members.

In 1899, Kennedy and Jesse E. James (son of the infamous Jesse James) were charged with a botched hold up near Leeds, Missouri. Their trial generated a wave of press attention but public sympathy was with James, so both men were acquitted.

An interesting side story concerns a claim on the $500 reward for Kennedy’s arrest, made by:

“Tom Hanks, the barber, who was shaving the ‘Quail Hunter’ when Officer James O’Malley took him into custody… Hanks claimed that when Kennedy learned of the reward for his arrest, he surrendered himself [to Hanks] and that it was Hanks’ intention to take his prisoner to the county jail as soon as he had finished his tonsorial work.”

Kennedy himself supported Hanks’ claim, though probably only to deprive the arresting officer of the $500. After his acquittal in the James trial Kennedy was arrested for a yet another robbery. This time the evidence stuck and Kennedy found himself serving a 17-year stretch in prison.

The ‘Quail Hunter’ carried out his last robbery near Wittenberg, Missouri in 1922. After holding up a mail train, Kennedy and his accomplice attempted to make their getaway but were ambushed by several deputies. A gunfight ensued and both men were shot dead.

Source: The Kansas City Journal, January 14th 1899. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1889: Three Bald Knobbers endure botched hangings

A Bald Knobber in full costume dress

The Bald Knobbers were a vigilante gang active in southern Missouri during the 1880s. The group came together in 1883 to deal with bandits and cross-border raiders plaguing local farmers. By 1885, the Bald Knobbers had grown in size and become troublemakers as much as trouble-stoppers. They also adopted a crude but intimidating uniform: a black hood with eye and mouth holes removed and the corners tied to resemble ears or horns.

The lawless behaviour of the Bald Knobbers led to the formation of the Anti-Bald Knobbers, in effect a vigilante group formed to combat another vigilante group. In March 1887 Bald Knobbers in Christian County shot up the home of an opponent, killing him and another man. Three Bald Knobbers – Dave Walker, his son William and Deacon Matthews – were arrested, tried and sentenced to death.

Their hanging took place in Ozark, Missouri on May 10th 1889 but was appallingly handled:

“The trap was sprung at 9.53 this morning. Matthews went down while uttering a prayer. The stretch of the rope was so great as to let all the doomed men fall to the ground. The rope finally broke and William Walker fell loose and lay on the ground struggling and groaning. He was taken up by the sheriff and his deputies and again placed on the scaffold. Dave Walker was swung up and died in 15 minutes. John Matthews lived about 13 minutes and died with his feet on the ground. The scene was horrible in the extreme. William Walker was lifted almost insensible, helpless and groaning on the scaffold and the rope was again adjusted around his neck. The trap was again sprung and this time the poor wretch came to a sudden stop with his feet full 30 inches above the ground. He died without a struggle.”

A gunfight between Bald Knobbers, Anti-Bald Knobbers and lawmen in July 1889 ended most of the Knobber violence in Missouri. The Bald Knobbers later featured in the popular 1907 novel The Shepherd of the Hills and two film adaptations, including a 1941 release starring John Wayne.

Source: The Sedalia Weekly Bazoo (Missouri), May 14th 1889. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1657: German woman jailed for not taking childbirth seriously

In 1657, an ecclesiastical court heard charges against Anna Maria Krauth, a married woman from Neckerhausen, near Frankfurt. Krauth had given birth to three stillborn babies in a row. According to several witnesses, including Krauth’s husband, her midwife and the local parson – these stillbirths were “her own doing”, brought about by her bad attitude.

According to their testimony, Krauth had told others that she “had no wish to bear [her husband’s] children” and “did swear, curse and speak of the Devil in her belly” while pregnant. Krauth was also heard to “wish herself dead, drowned in the Neckar [River] or hanged in the gallows at Stuttgart”. Also, when it came to childbirth, Krauth was apparently not enthusiastic enough and unwilling to follow instructions:

“She was without seriousness and did nought but bemoan of her condition…”

Krauth’s husband, an overweight man whose thighs “had the girth that a man usually was on his entire body”, testified that he had tried to “correct” her with beatings, apparently while she was pregnant. To nobody’s surprise, these beatings seemed to make her worse.

The court agreed that Krauth’s fate was her own doing. She was handed a fine and a 10-day stint in prison. Her fate after this is unknown.

Source: Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart, a.209, b.1720, 1657. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1587: Mrs Wanker and the Widow Porker carted for “whoredom”

During the Tudor period, the back-ends of carts often doubled as places of punishment for minor criminals and delinquents. Though the exact origins are unclear, to be dealt with at the rear of a cart marked one’s fall from civilised society. Scores of prostitutes and adulterers were ordered to be “tied to a cart’s arse” and either whipped there or paraded around town for public humiliation.

In 1555, a London man named Manwarynge was “carted to Aldgate with two whores from The Harry, for bawdry and whoredom”. In 1560, “the woman who kept the Bell in Gracechurch” was carted for pimping. Sir Thomas Sothwood, an Anglican priest, was carted for “selling his wife”. In North Carolina, Mary Sylvia was found guilty of blasphemy and “carted about town with labels on her back and breast, expressing her crime”.

Some were also punished for slanders involving carts. Sir Thomas Wyatt was thrown into prison in 1541 for telling others that Henry VIII should be “thrown out of a cart’s arse”.

Another brief but interesting mention of ‘carting’ comes from King’s Lynn, Norfolk, where in 1587:

“John Wanker’s wife and the Widow Porker were both carted for whoredom…”

Source: Benjamin Mackerell, The History and Antiquities of the Flourishing Corporation of King’s Lynn &c., London, 1738. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.