THE THAW TRIAL.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3763, 13 April 1907, Page 3

THE THAW TRIAL.

Jury Cannot Agree.

The Judge’s Remark.

New York, April 11

At yesterday’s sitting of the Court trying the case of Harry Thaw, charged with the murder of Stanford White, the argument of counsel was concluded.

Mr Jerome, district attorney, in his address to the jury, contended that as, out of scores of letters written by White to Mrs Thaw, before her marriage, and now in the possession of the defence, not one had been produced Court, there was no evidence that they containedanything bad. Mr Jerome proceeded to contrast this fact with the.evidence of the indefensible contents of one of Thaw’s letters, written to her in 1903. He next ridiculed the so-called “ dementia Americana”—a term coined by Mr Delmas (leading counsel for the defence) to designate insanity —as extravagant. With regard to the sanctity of the home such ‘ ‘ dementia ’ ’ —whatever its status in California—was unknown on the Atlantic seaboad. It was cowardice that made Thaw withhold his ‘‘dementia Americana” for three years before taking his vengeance. The case embodied all the elements of vulgar, every-day homicide.

Mr Justice Fitzgerald, in summing up the evidence, remarked that, no matter how bad a man was, he was entitled to the protection of the law. He concluded by saying that the burden of the proof regarding Thaw’s insanity was placed on the defence, and added that “irresistible impulses’’ had no place in law. The jury were unable to agree, and were locked up for the night.