AN EXTRAORDINARY CASE

Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 314, 9 May 1911, Page 2

AN EXTRAORDINARY CASE

AN AMERICAN BECK

What may well be termed the most extraordinary case m the annals of U.S. criminal trials, and certainly the most wonderful fight ever put up to ' secure a man's liberty, came again into public vie-v the other day, when an appeal for the absolute pardon of Albert T. Patrick was made to the Governor of New York. The resurrection of Patrick's nine-years' struggle for freedom and acquittal, piled "upon the long list of strange things it has already brought out, has evoked a new set of sensations.

— Genesis of the Case. —

In order to fully understand the motives of this remarkable case it is necessary to tell briefly the story of the crime for which Patrick was convicted. William Marsh Rbe, a Texas millionaire, at the time residing m New York, was found dead m his Fifth Avenue home one morning m October, 1900. Dr Walker Curry, who had attended Bice m a somewhat protracted illness, issued a certificate of death, assigning natural causes. The morning of the death Albert T. Patrick, an attorney and friend of Rice, appeared at the bank of S. M. Swenson and Sons, and presented several large cheques purporting to have been signed by Rice. A defect m one of the cheques caused suspicion, and Rice's home was called on the telephone. Charles F. Jones, Rice's valet, assured the bank that the cheque was genuine. The bank insisted that Mr Rice himself give his verbal approval of the cheque Then the bank was told that Rice was dead. An investigation followed, and Jones was arrested. Meanwhile the body was removed to an undertaker's and embalmed. The day set for the funeral an autopsy was decided upon and held. Nothing sensational was found. Then Patrick was arrested, and charged with forgery. Two wills were found— one leaving the bulk of Rice's fortune to a charitable institution for negroes m Texas, and the later one leaving this institution a much smaller sum, and making Patrick the residuary legatee and administrator.

— Jones Makes Several Confessions. —

Jones was subjected to a cruel examination, and made several confessions, finally asserting that Patrick had caused him to place a towel containing a sponge saturated with chloroform over the nostrils of the ill and sleeping millionaire. Patrick went to trial, and his attorneys were able to shatter badly the testimony of the weak, unstable Jones. The State was face to face with the problem of corroborating the testimony of the valet, and did so by producing testimony to show that the lungs of the body of Rice, examined after embalming, were slightly congested. This, the State asserted, was caused by the chloroform. The defence contended that the congestion had been due to seepage of the embalming fluid into the lungs. It also showed that the ingredients of the fluid used on Rice would have caused this congested condition. If this could be proved,- the State's sole corroboration of Jones's uncertain testimony was taken away. The State immediately produced experts who swore that embalming fluid injected into the brachial artery, as was done m Rice's case, could under no circumstances find its way into the lungs. — The Crux of the Case. — The defence replied with its own array of experts, who said that the opposite was the case, and that embalming fluid was certain .to reach {fie lungs by -ajmmber cf Totileir In the end the jury accepted the view of the State, and Patrck was convicted. The bearing of this medical point on the final termination of Patrick's case can hardly be overdrawn. Patrick hinusoif considers it the thing which convicted him. Then, of course, the usual legal steps were taken, and delay after delay ensued, arid eventually Patrick wa6 iepri«%ved Then appeared Dr William Smith, of the American School of Osteopathy, of Kirksville, Mo., who did not even know the prisoner at the time. It is best, therefore, to take up this strangest of strange cases, and continue it' with a portion of Dr Smith's own story. He says: —

Just before Christmas m 1906 Govtmor

Higgins reprieved him, ard without hie consent altered his sentence to hio imprisonment. That was almost ins last official act, as he cied about ten days later. I have heard it said that he could not die m peace with Patrick unc'er sentence of- death. On the mtrning after the reprieve I was r«ciding the account of the proceedings. Iv ot-e oi the New York papers I saw th-i t>tat«ment that " had it not been for tho medical testimony, which stated that unoer no circumstances "ould embalming tf.vud enter the lungs, Patrick might have been freed." The utter absurdity of it all appealed to me. I did not know PatricK, lut I at once called up T'alrifik's a:tornev, and told him that I tad absolute inu-r.lio-vertible evidence to the contrary. On the following Wednesday I took to his office some plates made by me by the X-ray (system two years before tho de^ih of Rice, m the .American School of Osteopathy, which showed injection fluid, and more than that, v^oiid matVsr m the lungs. When I showed these j-Jates to Judge Olcott, Patrick's attorney, he leaned back m hia 'hair and h,B eyes beamed. "Wonderful, wonderful," he said ; "if I had had tfose ten iuys aoo Patrick would be a free man t<iday°" Higgins died. We covJd 'Jo -.ivthing. He had turned down the p.trtion of 3,000, doctors of the State of New York, who believed the tfatemonts cf the State's "experts" were erroneous. He had turned down the appeal of the Nf \r York Medico-Legal Society, and had done the same thing with the protest of the embalmers of ihe State. . . This matter of the medical testimony is not a matter of my own opinion. Nor is it the opinion of Dx Donlin, J)r Bejl, Dr Littlejohn, or anyone eke. It ?s not a matter of scientific dispute ; it js a natter of plain, everyday fact. It iB as if a man said it was night wh.*n e\ejv<-ne knew it was day. That is all. — Dr Bell, a Famous Crirainologist Testifies.— '

It£;my student days m Edinfrirgh, Sectland, I had associated with. Dr Joseph JJiU pesident of the Royal CoJbge o' fcurgeons m Edinburgh, Surgeon *n Ordinary to the late King and the Kte Q.i«en Vi-rioria, He is the original from which Sir Auhur Conan Doyle drew his famous fiction charactor of Sherlock Holmes, a mighty thinker and the peer of ; all unravellers of crime! As the original of That character, Dr Bell had to be and is recognised as one of the shrewdest criminologists m tie world. And the creator of this character, Arthur Conan Doyle himself, must needs be proficient m weighing evidences of crime and showing correct results by the famous method of deduction that he made his hero employ. fcJir Arthur was a fellow. student with roe almost thirty years ago. My earliest teacher m anatomy was Si«* William Turner, now the retired professor of that subject m th» University of Edinburgh, and now known as the foremost anatomist of Europe With. Sir Henry D. Littlejohn, a man of international reputation as a medico-legal expert, I had worked

for years. I have been associated witl, him m several criminal cases. With him I have performed many autopsies of police cases. With John Chiene, the veteran professor of surgery m the same university, I had worked for two years. Chiene wa>> associated with Sir Joseph Lister wfien the latter promulgated his antiseptic theory. These are men whose words must count, men whose word means truth, and men who would no more sell their honor even for the whole of the State of New York than they would barter their 6oul&. I wrote to them, sent them my facts, the published interview with me m the undertakers' periodical, and all the scientific evidence m my profession. I asked them if the medical experts did not en- m asserting that "under no circumstances " could embalming fluid, when .injected into the right brachial artery, penetrate the lungs " ; that "it was possible to balance a towel, containing chloroform m such an amount as to kill, on the face of a sleeping man and not have the very action of the drug produce spasms to throw it off."

— What Other Doctors Say.—

In response to these letters Dr Smith has received quite a sheaf of communications supporting his view.

Dr Joseph Bell wrote: — "I have read the paper you sent me, and also your interesting letter. Am Ito understand that tha post-mortem examination upon wliich evidence^was founded was really made after embalming? As I have no doubt that the lung can be injected from the brachial, which indeed you prove, surely any results as to the vapor of chloroform being detected are quite impossible to understand."

Dr Little jolin added: — "After repeated consultations with our mutual friend, Dr Jcseph Bell, and having read his letter, which fully expresses my own views and. difficulties, I beg to endorse all he says." Sir Conan . Doyle wrote :— " I am much interested by your letter, and from the circumstances, as stated, there certainly seems to have been a gros6 miscarriage of justice. I have niucn sympathy with Mr Patrick, and wish you all success m your efforts." Dr John Chiene replied : " You can fili the whole body, lungs and all, from, the brachial artery with formalin solution. I could not separate the congested condition of the lung 6 due to inhalation of chloroform from a hypostatic congestion. I have never tried to put an adult, when asleep, under chloroform. I think he would waken. I have put a child under chloroform without wakening him. The poor man has surely been convicted on slender grounds. I wish you all success m your endeavors to get him off." Dr Sir William Turner said : — " In reply to the Question which you have put to me, I have no hesitation m saying that fluids injected into the brachial femoral arteries do find their way into the lungs. This remark applies not only to such fluids as are employed for purposes of embalming, biit to such a substance as liquid lard, which is sometimes used for filling the arterial system preliminary to dissection. It is not uncommon to find the left ventricle, the left auricle, and the pulmonary veins distended with the material which the anatomist has injected into the arterial system." — A Powerful Appeal. — Concluding his story, Dr Smith thus sums up : — We are asking for a chance for the under dogi m the fight,' a commission to decide whether or not he deserves a I new trial. Arthur Train, assistant district attorney m Jerome's office, m the May, 1907, issue of the 'American Magazine,' stated that "the evidence of the medical experts convicted Patrick." That evidence did not convict on the ground that he was " found guilty." There is a vast difference between the two. If a rehearing is granted, I will pledge my word that I will demonstrate to the authorities m such a manner that there can be no possible doubt about it that the evidence of the medical witnesses for the State m the case of the People v. Albert T. Patrick was erroneous, whether through wilful or casual ignorance. lam prepared to inject into a body embalming fluid m exactly the same manner as did the embalmer m the case of Rice. And if the fluid injected into the right brachial artery fails to penetrate the lungs, I will admit that the medical testimony which convicted Patrick was correct, and I will give up the fight. Patrick does not want a pardon. He would decline it. He does not desire_to have the Governor say : " Yes, you hs<^ ; killed an eighty-fiye-year-old man, but we will forgive you this time. Be good now ; you must kill no more people." That is not what he desires. He wishes for that for 'which he has always begged, a square chance to prove his innocence and an opportunity to obtain a vindication. . . . Let America never talk of wrongful convictions, ' miscarriages of just ice. or anything of the kind m other countries until Albert T. Patrick is given 1 a chance to present evidence which was kept out at his trial.