CHAPTER XXV.

Deliberations of the Jury.

TWELVE MEN UNABLE TO REST OR SLEEP, HAVE HARD TIME--ANY ONE OF SIX VERDICTS COULD BE GIVEN, SAID LAWYERS--THAW GLOOMY--VISITED BY WIFE--MOTHER WORN OUT BY ANXIETY--JURORS HAVE PART OF EVIDENCE READ AND RETURN FOR MORE BALLOTING--EVELYN ALMOST MOBBED BY CROWD--VARIOUS RUMORS AFLOAT.

From the moment they left the court room, the jurors had a hard task before them. The situation was complex. According to legal experts there were six verdicts from which a logical choice could be made, as follows:

1. Murder in the first degree, the penalty for which is death.

2. Murder in the second degree, the penalty for which is life imprisonment.

3. Manslaughter in the first degree, the penalty for which is imprisonment for twenty years.

4. Manslaughter in the second degree, punishable by fifteen years’ imprisonment.

5. Not guilty, on the ground that the defendant was insane at the time of the shooting.

6. Not guilty, without any explanation.

When the jury went out. Justice Fitzgerald expected a verdict soon, and remained in the court room until 11 p. m., ready to receive it. At that hour no word had come from the jury, and the judge ordered the twelve men locked up for the night. Thaw’s cheerfulness had entirely disappeared, and it was plain that he was in a mood of deepest gloom as he was led back into the prisoner’s pen. There his wife visited him for a short time, endeavoring to cheer him, and then she went to dinner at a near-by restaurant with Dan O’Reilly, a member of Thaw’s counsel, not wishing to be away from her husband if a verdict should be returned.

In spite of District Attorney Jerome’s masterly speech, the members of the Thaw family had a faint hope for an immediate verdict, and remained in the courtroom for half an hour. Finally it became apparent that their stay was useless. Mrs. William Thaw, worn out with anxiety, was forced to go to her hotel.

Though the long delay seemed to many close observers to preclude a verdict of acquittal, it was taken as indicating that a verdict of guilty also could not be reached, and the impression began to gain, that there would be a disagreement, which would render the twelve weeks’ trial useless.

Members of Thaw’s family were fearful, however, lest under Justice Fitzgerald’s charge the jury might bring in a verdict for one of the lesser degrees of murder or for manslaughter as outlined by the court.

One of the prison guards with Thaw received word from his home that his little girl, who had been ill for several days, was dying. Thaw turned to him and expressed the greatest sympathy.

“You are in a worse predicament than I am,” he said to the guard, “and I am very sorry.”

When Justice Fitzgerald re-opened court the next morning he sent a bailiff to ask Foreman Smith if the jury had reached a verdict. “No, we have not,” was the only reply.

At 11 a.m. the second day the jury sent word it would come into court for further instructions.

A moment later they filed in, headed by Deming B. Smith, their foreman. Nobody needed to be told that they had sat up all night. They looked it. The look of weariness and anxiety and sleepiness was all over them, but they did not look like men who were ready to quit. They looked like men who knew the gravity of their task and who were determined to discharge it properly if there was any way of doing it.

Justice Fitzgerald came in a moment later and as soon as he had taken his seat Clerk Penny advanced to the rail and said in the quiet manner he might use in asking for a glass of water: “Harry K. Thaw to the bar.”

There was a brief delay, then the pen door opened and Thaw came in ahead of a prion keeper and took his place, smiling a trifle at his wife and mother. Thaw’s relatives had been in the building an hour or so before the jury came in. They all bore themselves in the same impassive manner. Grave they were, but none of them appeared in the least excited. Evelyn Thaw herself looked as if she has passed a wretched night. She was paler than usual and her eyes looked as if she might have been weeping. District Attorney Jerome and Assistant District Attorney Garvan were in their usual places, as also were all of the prisoner’s counsel.

Justice Fitzgerald, in taking the bench, said:

“I have received a request from the jury to be allowed to examine and have possession of the following exhibits:

“1. The plan or diagram of Madison Square garden.

“2. Exhibits A to I--the letters from Thaw to Attorney Longfellow.

“3. The will and codicil.

“4. The Comstock letter.

“5. Mr. Delmas’ hypothetical question.

“6. Mr. Jerome’s hypothetical question.”

“The people have no objection,” said Mr. Jerome.

“The defense has none,” said Mr. O’Reilly of Thaw’s counsel.

Foreman Smith stated that the jury desired not only the typewritten copies of the Thaw letters, will and codicil, but the originals as well. The papers were gathered together by Clerk Penny and made into a bundle.

The reading of the testimony of Policeman Dennis Wright and John Anthony and Peter Barrett, doormen of the Nineteenth precinct police station, followed.

Meyer Cohen’s testimony had been largely a personal demonstration by himself of Thaw’s attitude after the shooting and his manner of approaching Stanford White. Henry S. Plaise was with Cohen the night of the tragedy.

Finally the jury asked to hear again the testimony of the doormen on duty at the Tenderloin precinct police station the night of Thaw’s arrest and who gave testimony as to the defendant claiming to hear the voices of young girls.

Juror Pink, who undoubtedly was in very bad shape, delayed the reading of the testimony to the jury by asking permission to retire for a few minutes. He tottered from the room accompanied by an officer and seemed near a collapse.

After an absence of five minutes he resumed his place in the jury box, looking very pale and tired.

Lastly the jurymen asked to have read to them the testimony of Evelyn Thaw so far as it related to the shooting, the testimony of Thomas McCaleb as to where the party was sitting on the roof garden, and the testimony of Dr. Allen McLane Hamilton so far as it was allowed before the jury.

Foreman Smith also asked to have read that portion of Justice Fitzgerald’s charge relating to the testimony of Drs. Evans and Wagners.

After hearing a review of the evidence for two hours and a half the jury retired to its room at 1:30 for a luncheon and further balloting.

Evelyn Thaw was almost mobbed by the hundreds of curious persons outside the courthouse as she left the building to go to luncheon with Attorney Dan O’Reilly. Evelyn separated from the other members of the family at the door and started to walk to a restaurant in Franklin street.

The crowd surged about her by the hundreds, growing constantly with every foot traversed. Several policemen rushed to her assistance, but they were unable to keep back the mob, which crowded about her close enough to touch her garments.

When she had entered the restaurant hundreds took up their station outside to await her appearance.

When the other members of the Thaw family left the building it required several policemen to protect them from the curious ones.

Nothing further was heard from the jury room the second day. The twelve men were taken out to a meal early in the evening, and Justice Fitzgerald, after awaiting a verdict until 11 p.m., ordered the jurors locked up for the night. Thirty-one hours of deliberation had passed then.

This was the second night that the jury has been locked up in the bare jury room, whose only furniture was a long table and some hard chairs. Contrary to what has occurred at many other famous murder trials no information leaked out of the jury room regarding the attitude of the jurors towards conviction or acquittal that could be regarded as in the least reliable.

Various rumors were afloat. Most of them had it that the jury stood 10 to 2 or 9 to 3 for conviction, but on investigation it provided that all of the rumors were nothing better than guesses.

Soon after it was announced that the jury was to be shut up for the night. Thaw was taken from the pen back to his cell. As he left the pen he handed out to the reporters this note:

“It is a great satisfaction that all of my family continue well. I regret that so many officials and others have so much extra work.”

On the morning of Friday, April 12, rumor had it that nine of the jurors had agreed to find Thaw guilty of one in these three degrees:

Murder in the second degree; penalty, life imprisonment.

Manslaughter, first degree; penalty, twenty years’ imprisonment.

Manslaughter, in the second degree; penalty, fifteen years’ imprisonment.

The nine, it was reported, were veering most strongly to manslaughter in the first degree and the three holding out for acquittal.

At noon the crowd about the courthouse was so great that traffic was practically stopped. More than 5,000 people gathered about the building and when a rumor that any member of the Thaw family was about to leave the building they surged from one corner to another, sweeping the few policemen who were trying to preserve order almost off their feet.

A call for reserves from several nearby precinct stations was responded to by half a hundred men, who were distributed on both of the streets on all four sides of the building.

Inspector McClusky issued orders that no crowd was to be permitted to congregate. No one was allowed to stand on the sidewalks, all of the curious being obliged to keep moving.

The jury did not go out to luncheon, but had its meals sent in, and this added strength to the rumors that a verdict was near.