Rensselaer Journal, Volume 10, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 May 1901 — The Acquittal of Professor Eastman. [ARTICLE]

The Acquittal of Professor Eastman.

The acquittal of Prof. Charles R. Eastman of Harvard University of the charge of murdering his brother-in-law, closes one of the most remarkable murder trials in the history of jurisprudence. The circumstances of the shooting, the high standing of the defendant in the educational and social world and the strange ante-mortem allegations of the as he lay mortally wounded by a bullet fired during a Fourth of July target practice —all served to invest the trial with intense dramatic interest. The verdict of acquittal in this case is somewhat remarkable considering the weight, of purely circumstantial evidence with the average American jury when adroitly and powerfully handled by a lawyer of Attorney General Knowlton’s eloquence and ability. But fortunately for American jurisprudence and justice the jury considered and weighed the testimony of witnesses and not the fervent oratory of Mr. Knowlton. To have convicted Eastman under such circumstantial evidence would have been a blot upon the jurisprudence of the old Bay State. In such a case as this the ends of justice and of humanity are best served by giving the defendant the benefit of the doubt which any impartial student of the case must concede was present in every detail of the trial and which the state could not remove. If the accused in this case could have been hanged for murder the life of no person would be safe, no matter how remote might be his connection with a fatality. The bullet that killed Richard Grogan was no doubt fired from Eastman’s revolver, but there was not sufficient evidence adduced to refute the claim that the killing was accidental.