Black Rage Confronts the Law. Paul Harris

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      I hope I have satisfied you that this Prisoner is clearly responsible for his acts. He is not an idiot. This is not pretended. He has not dementia. His attention, coherence, memory of events, ancient and recent, keen and steady glance, healthy appearance—all triumphantly repel the idea of dementia. He had no disease when these murders were committed, nor has he now. He has never had an insane delusion.

      Van Buren was afraid that testimony linking racial oppression to mental illness might have found a sympathetic ear among some of the jurors, so he tried to scare them by implying that civilized society will be destroyed if these theories are accepted.

      Doctrines have been advanced by counsel and witnesses in the course of this trial, dangerous to the peace of society and fatal to good government. The laws and institutions under which we live have been assailed. The maxims of law which have emanated from the wisest and most humane jurist that ever lived—maxims of which the security of liberty, property, and life have reposed for ages; which the successive wisdom of centuries has confirmed, and under which the safety of Prisoners, as well as of society, has been protected—are now openly derided and defied.

      In many ways Van Buren’s closing argument foreshadows the arguments of twentieth-century prosecutors. He raised theories that find support today when he suggested that acquittal would cause other criminals to excuse their behavior by pleading insanity. He informed the jury that Freeman attended Henry Wyatt’s first insanity trial, which ended in a hung jury, suggesting that Bill got the idea from the defense that he could commit a murder and get away with it by pleading insanity like Wyatt.

      Now, is there not reason to fear that this depraved criminal may have caught from the theories broached on Wyatt’s trial, and from the result, an impression that he could commit this crime with impunity? Far be it from me to suggest that the distinguished Counsel or witnesses on that occasion ever imagined or contemplated such a frightful consequence. But is it beyond the range of possibilities?

      It is hard to take such an argument seriously, particularly when we recall that a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity would cause Bill to be locked up for the rest of his life in the state lunatic asylum.

      Van Buren attempted to frighten the jury by raising the image of cunning individuals committing crimes all over the state and using the defense of insanity as a justification for their acts.

      Is it not the imperative duty of those charged in any way with the faithful execution of the laws, to remember that the audience who throng a Criminal Court Room, are not exclusively composed of the upright, the intelligent or the humane, and when theories are advanced in such a presence, which strike at the root of Law and Order, and furnish a perfect license for Crime, by rendering its detection impossible, to sift them thoroughly, and if as unsound as they are dangerous, to condemn them publicly and boldly? It needed not the fearful conjectures as to the origin of this crime, to induce courts, juries and public prosecutors, by very just means, to extinguish sparks which threaten such wide-spread conflagration.

      Van Buren’s arguments were not foolish attempts to manipulate the jurors’ prejudices. His closing argument is a fascinating historical document precisely because it represents the same values prevalent in the law today, 150 years and one Civil War later. Van Buren viewed Seward’s attempt to tie together the concepts of racial oppression, mental illness, and criminal responsibility as an attack “at the root of Law and Order.” The fears and responses of government to this argument in our day have been strikingly similar. The law of insanity has been changed in every federal jurisdiction so that it is now the same conservative rule that it was in 1846. Three states have abolished the insanity defense altogether. Numerous states are passing laws restricting insanity defenses. And commentators are suggesting, like Van Buren, that insanity defenses based on the oppressive nature of social conditions are “a perfect license for Crime.”

      In Van Buren’s argument we find the myth of an impartial system of equal justice that is still the prevalent ideological underpinning of American law. We also find the deeply ingrained fear of allowing social reality into the courtroom. A defense which contends that there is a link between social conditions such as racial oppression and antisocial acts is interpreted as a threat to law and order and to America’s institutions.

      Identifying with the forces of law and order, Van Buren closed by appealing to the patriotism and fears of the jurors.

      The danger to the peace of this community only affects me, as a lover of good order. If crimes of this magnitude are to go unpunished, and thus to invite imitation, it is your hearth-stones, not mine, that may be drenched in blood. But I do confess to a feeling of pride at the administration of justice in our State. Elsewhere, the murderer may go at large as a Somnambulist, an Insane Man, or a Justifiable Homicide. But in New York, thus far, the steady good sense and integrity of our Juries, and the enlightened wisdom of our Judges, have saved our Jurisprudence from ridicule, and firmly upheld Law and Order. Thus may it ever be; and I feel entire confidence, not withstanding the extraordinary appeals that have been made to you in this case, that your verdict will be in keeping with the high character our tribunals have thus acquired, and will prove that the Jurors of Cayuga fully equal their fellow citizens of other counties, in intelligence to perceive, and independence to declare the guilt of a criminal.

      The jury deliberated for only one hour and found William Freeman guilty.

      By the day of the sentencing Bill’s mental condition had worsened. He either did not understand or did not care that he was going to be hanged. When the Judge asked him if he understood he was going to be sentenced to die, he simply responded, “I don’t know.”

      One reason the legal system in the United States and England has been so successful in protecting existing institutions and power relations is that the participants actually believe the fictitious stories embedded in the legal culture. Judges in particular accept the myth of equal justice for all people. The Honorable Bowen Whiting was no exception. He was preparing to send William Freeman to his death. To make that act palatable and legitimate, both to himself and to the public, in what was considered the most important criminal trial in America in the first half of the nineteenth century, Judge Whiting needed to choose the right myths to express in the sentencing. He needed to talk of equal justice and to praise the law as the protector of all citizens, and he did so.

      “Let it not be said that the administration of justice is partial or prejudiced by reason of his color, his social degradation, or his monstrous crimes. Slow and tedious as these proceedings have been, the Court are certain that in the minds of all reflecting men, a confidence will arise in the power of the laws to protect the rights of our fellow citizens, and that the result will reflect honor upon the institutions and law of the country.

      There is one particularly revealing section in the judge’s sentencing speech. He says that the most important lesson to be drawn from the case is the recognition of “a duty upon society to see to the moral cultivation of the colored youth, now being educated for good or evil in the midst of us.” Judge Whiting was warning the public that if they did not educate young blacks to respect law and white institutions, then the same kind of violence expressed by Freeman would be visited upon the entire society. In a warped way, the judge recognized the black rage that filled the African American community.

      Having set out the facts of the case as he interpreted them, having praised the fairness and justice of the law, and having warned the public about colored youth, Judge Whiting then pronounced sentence:

      The Judgment of the law is, that the prisoner at the bar, William Freeman, be taken from this place to the place from whence he came, there to remain until Friday, the eighteenth day of September next, and that on that day, between the hours of one and four in the afternoon, he be taken from thence to the place of execution appointed by law, and there BE HUNG BY THE NECK UNTIL HE SHALL BE DEAD.

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