University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XIV.

MR. COLEMAN FOR THE DEFENSE.

Mr. J. Tinsley Coleman of Lynchburg, who came into the case after
the beginning of the trial and after the retirement of Mr. Harmon,
made a very able and forcible presentation of the facts bearing upon
the innocence of the prisoner. His speech was a severe arraignment
of the witnesses for the prosecution and a careful dissection of the
evidence they gave.

"If your honor please, and gentlemen of the jury," said he in commencing,
"there is no occasion that you should be warned against eloquence
and rhetoric from me. If I have any talent whatsoever, I trust
and believe in reasoning with you without the aid of either of these
mediums. I shall attempt now in a plain, unvarnished way to reason
with you in respect to this evidence and in respect to the law—to see
if I can assist you in coming to what I conceive to be a just and
proper conclusion. Of course, gentlemen of the jury, you cannot argue
with me in the sense of asking questions, but I invite you, as I proceed,
to debate within your minds to see if my conclusions are not supported
by law and the evidence in the case.

"The first thing I want to call your attention to is this—there is an
unusual feature in this case. You know enough of judicial trials to
understand that ordinarily the jurors who sit in the boxes are from the
community and the vicinage wherein arises the case they are investigating.
In this case that is not true. Every man of you was brought
here from somewhere else—some from Richmond, some from Petersburg,
some from Fredericksburg, and some from Warrenton. Now,
gentlemen, what does that mean? It means that the community in
which this occurrence took place is satisfied that it cannot fairly try
the case, and the community speaking through the judge of this court,
has asked your assistance in reaching the justice of this case upon its
own confession that it is disqualified from doing so.

"The community frankly comes forward and says to you gentlemen,
`We are disqualified to try this case, and we ask you to come here in
order that there may be no miscarriage of justice.'

"It was that fear of a miscarriage of justice that brings you here in
order that you, who are not prejudiced, may judge honestly, uprightly
and fairly. But, notwithstanding this confession upon the part of the
community, the community has, nevertheless, appeared in this trial

by proxy in the person of my good friend, Captain Woods. All right;
we have no objection. I have nothing to say about it, but the thing
which makes me wonder is how my friend who, he himself says, is the
mouthpiece of the public at this trial—how he can conceive the idea
that he is in a judicial frame of mind and can compare himself to a
juror—is beyond my mind."

Then the speaker added with an exclamatory touch of sarcasm:
"Swept into the forefront of this trial of a man who, he tells you, is his
friend, and between whom and himself the relations were always
friendly and cordial. It passes my understanding. How can he think
that he is possessed of any judicial frame of mind and can deal with
the case as you are expected to deal with it? The issue propounded
to you by the lawyers on the other side is life or death. If that be true,
it behooves you to cast aside all other considerations. It is your duty
to hear every detail of the defense and to give the accused a fair trial—
not simply an honest trial—I know he will get that—but a trial in
which the scales of justice shall be so evenly held that the dust of
injustice shall have been blown away."

The speaker here paid a very pretty tribute to the legal profession
and asked the jury not to steel their hearts against him because he was
a lawyer, but to follow his arguments and see if they were not reasonable.

"The Commonwealth has failed to establish a motive, but even if it
had established a motive," said Mr. Coleman, "I am prepared to show
you that it was insufficient. You must try this case upon the law and
the evidence and you are bound by the law which you have sworn to
regard.

"The statements of Crawford could not have been true, because, he
himself has denied it, as proven by two or three witnesses. You can't
doubt that he said that Mr. and Mrs. McCue, after fourteen years of
married life, were still on their honeymoon. It is not worth while for
me to comment on the letters that have been introduced into court.
You know they could not have passed between people who were unfriendly."

At this point accused weeps, as he does whenever reference is made
to these letters.

"Let us see," continued Mr. Coleman, "if there is evidence to show
that these relations ever changed." Here the attorney reviewed the evidence
of Miss Bertie Crawford, and said that it was a fair inference
that McCue told his wife that his trip was no affair of hers, because he
did not want Miss Bertie Crawford to know about the trip.

Mr. Coleman referred to Mr. Brand as "a man without a memory,"

who could not tell a word to what the accused had said to his wife,
although McCue was "ready to kill her in a second."

The speaker was caustic in his reference to the evidence of the colored
janitor, upon whom the Commonwealth relied as an exemplar of how a
husband should treat his wife. The lawyer facetiously alluded to the
negro as the "Arbiter Elegantiarum of Charlottesville."

In referring to Minor, the colored butler, Mr. Coleman said: "He is
a negro, it is true, but the other side was the first to introduce Africa
into this war." This witness, though he be as black as the ace of
spades, was the best witness to testify to the relations of these two
people. He could not have lived in this house nine years without knowing
if there were unpleasant relations and without speaking of these
relations.

"Grady's evidence was to show that the accused took his wife to the
theatre, to church and to public places.

"The fact cannot be whistled down by the wind that the accused taxed
himself to carry insurance policies to the amount of $60,000 for the
benefit of his wife. (Here the prisoner again weeps.) Suppose he was
guilty of a forgetfulness of the marital vows. May not your virtue and
mine be but the insufficiency of temptation. That does not afford a
proper motive. Men do not murder their wives simply because they
do not love them."

After quoting from the instructions and making further reference to
the motive as defined in the law of the court, Mr. Coleman went on to
discuss the occurrences in the house on the night of the murder. Like
Mr. Sinclair, he declared that the charge of murder against the husband,
was no less improbable than the theory of attempted burglary.

"We claim, gentlemen," he said, "that if the theory of burglary is
improbable, the theory that this man McCue selected that hour and that
time to shoot his own wife in his own house, in a populous part of the
town, where the streets were lighted and the house itself was lighted,
when people were passing along the sidewalk; we claim that this is
more wildly improbable than the theory of burglary or any other theory
that the ingenuity of the human mind can devise.

"Now let us see about this theory of burglary, cried down by the
other side. The house was open. This is admitted. McCue had been
out of town and he came back unexpectedly. The family went to
church. It was Sunday night. The house was left entirely alone. Suppose
a man had set out that night to commit a robbery. No house in
Charlottesville would have been more inviting. It was the house of a
well-to-do man. There would be no difficulty of getting into it. We all
know that. The owner of the house was supposed to be away. The
wife and children had gone out. What was easier?

"Suppose a man had gone into that house, and while he was there,
McCue and his wife came in through the front door. In a residence of
that size, he could easily have concealed himself. It is in evidence that
the plug was in the bath tub and the hot water was running. The
couple went to the bed chamber and began to disrobe. Mrs. McCue
had been away. What was more natural than that she would wish
to take a bath, that she turned on the hot water. Now suppose a man
in that house had seen her in the bath tub or in the room. What infernal
and unmentionable scheme might not have entered his head?

"Gentlemen, this is no idle vagary; in my city a short while ago, a
white woman was assaulted, not at night, in some obscure section, but
in the broad open light of day, and in one of the most populous sections
of the town."

The speaker went on to elaborate upon the probability or the improbability
of the theory of burglary. He supposed the burglar sneaking
through the house, coming suddenly upon the man and wife in the
lighted bed chamber; observing the start of the husband as the strange
face peering through the door showed in the looking-glass. Thinking
himself recognized, he had done that which would have come naturally
to any marauder, who, caught in another's bed chamber, would have
met a just fate, had he been shot down—he had attacked the man
and "put him out of commission." Then with his work unfinished, he
turned upon the woman, who had seen him, and forever closed her
lips.

"Whether this is true or not, gentlemen," declared Mr. Coleman, "I
do not know. It is the statement that has been consistently made by
this accused. I repeat that I do not know whether this supposition is
true to the facts or not, but neither, gentlemen, do you; I have seen no
evidence to discredit it; neither have you. If it sounds improbable, it
is certainly not less improbable to think that McCue killed his own
wife. Do you think it is more probable that McCue killed his own wife,
than that a burglar killed her? If you do, why? According to the testimony
of Mr. Dinwiddie, they were on the best of terms that night.
There was no reason for it. It is impossible to conceive it. We have
heard much of the varying statements of the accused. It is impossible
that some of these variations sprang up in the minds of those who testified
here? But suppose it had been said here that he told throughout
a straight story, would it not at once have been declared a stereotyped
untruth?"

"We have also heard that there was no outcry, and the inference has
been made that this man McCue killed his wife and then tried to conceal
his crime. And yet, what have we in the evidence? Miss Bragg,
telephone operator, says here that McCue broke in suddenly and asked

her for `somebody.' When she asked him whom he wanted he gave the
first name that flashed into his head, `Mr. Williams.'

"She told him the 'phone of Mr. Williams was busy. Now, mark you,
gentlemen, what he said: `Oh, central, do not tell me it is busy; somebody
is in my house, has shot me and probably killed my wife!' Gentlemen,
of the jury, was that the way to conceal a crime? It has been
said that the police learned by accident and arrived in time to `let the
cat out of the bag.' But did this accused not himself tell the girl, who
in turn notified the police? It is true he did not rush into the streets
and cry for help. He had another way. He used the telephone.

"A great deal has been said here," continued Mr. Coleman, in effect,
"about the bloody shirt. Gentlemen, it is in evidence that the wound of
Mrs. McCue was almost bloodless until she was turned over and the
cavity was opened. It has been also said by my friend Ker that she
could not, from the nature of the would, have been shot while she was
in the bath tub. Then, where was she shot?

"They do not know, but this we do know. There was no blood in the
chamber and none in the hall. While Mrs. McCue lay upon her back
no blood came from the wound. If she had been picked up and carried
to the bath tub after she was shot, the clothes of the man who carried
her would have been saturated with blood. Upon this shirt you see
only a few spots. Where did they come from? They came, gentlemen
of the jury, from the bloody fingers of the undertaker, Biery, who admitted
that the shirt was handed to him."

Emphasis was also laid by Mr. Coleman upon the fact that there had
been no effort to conceal the shirt. He referred to the scrape of gauze
and declared that nobody could say positively that it was part of the
shirt; that it could not have been in the bath room on the night of
the murder since none of the searchers had found it; that nobody knew
how it got there the next day or would ever know. He then proceeded
to attack the Commonwealth for bringing into its arguments references
to testimony that the court had expressly declared should be used only
for the purpose of impeaching witnesses, and should not be considered
as evidence against the accused. He said he had endeavored to point
out what the Commonwealth had undertaken to prove and what it had
ignominiously failed to prove. He would now touch lightly upon a few
other matters and would then attempt to apply the law, to which, as he
said before, the Commonwealth had paid but slight attention. He referred
with amazement to the statement of Captain Woods that unless
he was senseless McCue must be held responsible for the murder of his
wife, because he was in the house on the night of the tragedy. This,
the speaker declared, was not the law.

Before he proceeded farther in this connection, Mr. Coleman referred
to a matter he had overlooked in the afternoon. This was the conversation
in the jail between John S. White and the a cused. After calling
attention to the fallibility of human nature and the inability of the
most careful always to report accurately, he analyzed the conversation
itself. As for the "hell on earth," he declared that the conviction was
in the mind of the witness that there was nothing to indicate and no
reason to believe that McCue referred to the domestic affairs of his own
home. The speaker also combatted the supposition that any odium
was attached to the epithet, "that woman," with which McCue is said to
have referred to his wife.

During the next three-quarters of an hour Mr. Coleman discussed
and elucidated the instructions of the court. He took them up one by
one and went over each carefully and thoroughly, dwelling upon those
dealing with circumstantial evidence and reasonable doubt. When he
had gotten through he went back to the evidence and declared that the
arguments of the prosecution applied with equal force in favor of the
accused. He thought that a man like McCue, of high social standing
and no inconsiderable business position, should, in his own house, surrounded
by his neighbors, murder his own wife, was inconceivable.

In conclusion, Mr. Coleman made a brief but earnest appeal for his
client, declaring that the jury would not seek its decision in the headlong
passions of an infuriated crowd, but would determine the case
according to the law and the evidence.

JOHN L. LEE.

Leading Counsel for Defense.