Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 October 1897 — JURY FAILS TO AGREE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

JURY FAILS TO AGREE

FAMOUS LUETGERT MURDER CASE ENDS IN A MISTRIAL. Jury Was Out Sixty-six Hours and Stood on Last Ballot Nine to Three for Conviction New Trial Will Be Necessary. End of the Long Siege. The great Luetgert trial in Chicago, the most absorbing criminal prosecution of the century, ended in a disagreement of the jury. For sixty-six hours the jury tried in vain to reach a verdict. For thir-ty-eight hours the vote was 9 to 3 for conviction and at 10:40 o'clock Thursday forenoon the twelve men announced an irreconcilable disagreement, and Judge Tuthill, being convinced that it was useless and inhuman to attempt to force a verdict, reluctantly ordered its discharge. The twenty-second and last ballot stood nine for conviction and three for acquittal. This was irrespective of any question of the penalty which had to wait on the jury’s decision as to the guilt or innocence of the prisoner. The big sausage maker, the center of a series of the most dramatic episodes in the annals of criminal procedure, will have to go through this experience a second time, for he will be put on trial again for the murder of his wife. The closing events of the famous trial made up a scene of not more than eleven minutes’ duration. But a tense, feverish emotion was packed into every one of these minutes and even Luetgert, with his iron nerve, felt the strain. His face was bloodless as he entered the court room and a tangle of deep furrows extended across his brow. A keen, swift look shot from beneath his shaggy gray eyebrows and his glance seemed to take in at a flash that the supreme moment in his fate had arrived. As he came in from the jail a battery of eyes threw at him looks whose significance expressed all degrees of curiosity. In his walk, his mhnner, his mien, constraint was there and the anxiety that sent the blood from his cheek and put a purple tinge on hi® lips was visibly shared in by his counsel. Coutt was opened and the jurors notified to appear. Nearly three days of wrangling, loss of sleep, and the close confinement had worked a wonderful transformation on them. They entered the room with lagging steps and sank into their chairs a woe-begone looking crowd.

In response to command from Judge Tuthill, Foreman Heichhold arose in his place and announced as his positive belief that no verdict could be reached. The judge interrogated the jurymen individually and each positively declared that no influence or argument could change his opinion. The attorneys for both sides agreed that the jury be discharged, and it was done. Thus ended the first trial of what must be regarded as one of the most remarkable criminal cases of the century. The trial was in progress nearly nine weeks and cost the State of Illinois over $15,000. Of the disagreement it can frankly be said that the division in the jury fairly represents the division of opinion in the great world outside the jury box, where every fact and incident of the trial has been followed with engrossing scrutiny. It is probable that a poll of all those who have given intelligent consideration to the testimony and the law as laid down by the court would present a division of three to one in favor of a conviction. The proportion of those who believe in the prisoner’s guilt is probably much greater. But belief in guilt and convicting a prisoner on circumstantial evidence such as that produced for the State in this case are two very different things. Ready for a New Trial. State’s Attorney Deneen said he would press for another trial, but when he did not know. He said it would be on the same theory as the one finished was prosecuted. The vat theory, the boiling of the body of his wife in crude potash, and again the convincing part es the evidence of the heinous murder would be the rings. It was the rings that fortified the majority in the jury in its demand for the conviction of Luetgert. Attorneys Vincent and Phalen said they were ready for the new trial whenever it might be held. They said they would present a far stronger defense than before, Luetgert said he was anxious for another trial and confident it would be ended in his acquittal. He charged the failure of securing a verdict that would exonerate him from the fearful charge to the fact that Juror Shaw was accepted. The next time, he tsserts, he will take the stand in his own defense, with or without the consent of his counsel. Judge Tuthill said that he believed it would be impossible to select a competent jury in Cook County on account of the~publicity given to the proceedings of the trial just ended. It is therefore possible that Luetgert may never be tried again.

Luetgert said he was not surprised that the jury disagreed and that he was confident no verdict would be made twentyfour hours before. He was not taken by surprise when he heard Foreman Heichhold announce that no verdict had been made and none was likely to follow. Neither was it a surprise to him when every man in the jury box said the same thing in response to the questions of Judge Tuthill as he polled the-jury. No objection was made to the discharge of the jury. Judge Tuthill asked Attorneys Vincent and Phalen what they were disposed to do and they said it seemed as if the discharge of the jury was the only thing justified by the situation. Luetgert was then asked the same question by Judge Tuthill and he agreed with his attorneys. State’s Attorney Deneen said

he thought it was apparent that the jury could not agree. Not once, however, did the jurors ask to be discharged. They were a determined set of fighters and they looked for no interference on the part of the judge, in whose discretion they might have been released at any time. In the interview's given by members of the jury they said they paid little attention to the bones. Although the battle of the osteologists was the great feature of the trial, the sesamoid, femur and other bones which were introduced in evidence as portions of Mrs. Luetgert, and over which the battle was fought, were not considered by the jurors. They were east aside as having no weight in proving guilt. To the way of thinking employed by several of the jurors, the work of impeaching the Schimpke girls and Nick Faber was fruitless. There were those in the jury who gave credence to their testimony that they saw Mrs. Luetgert with her husband going toward the engine room of the factory that night. Greater, however, than all of the evidence was that of the rings. The absence from the smaller ring of any milling was the point that did most to keep the three jurors strong in their assertion that Luetgert was innocent. Nearly all - of the witnesses said the small ring had a milled edge when they saw it with Mrs. Luetgert, while the one in evidence had a smooth outer surface. And when it was all ended an encomium of Inspector Schaack’s methods issued from the jury room. With the exception of Foreman Heichhold, who wrote this peculiar document in which Schaack’s manner of securing evidence was commended, most of the jurors denied any knowledge of signing such a document. They admitted having signed resolutions of thanks to Judge Tuthill and the court officers, but exhibited no knowledge of the last paragraph which sounded approval of the north side police inspector. . . Were it not for Juror Harler, it is asserted by many of the other jurors, a verdict of guilty would have been rendered. Harlev -was convinced of Luetgert’s innocence and he voted for acquittal on every ballot. His positiveness was a prop and support to Holabird and Barber, who voted with him on every ballot. When he left the court building he was cheered by the crowds in the street, who distinguished him as the one who was immovable in his belief of the prisoner’s innocence. After nearly two months of legal contention the case goes upon the records to be cited as another of the historic murder trials of the century. The celebrity of this sensational case has been partly due to the extraordinary character of the alleged crime as described by the State and partly to the unusual developments of the trial itself. The State had before it the difficult task of evoking the image of Mrs. Luetgert from a few bones and two gold rings. To connect the dead woman with the accused it then had to present to the jurors a story which naturally would seem hard to believe, and in proof of which it had only circumstantial evidence

to offer. Experts were called m to identify bones and debris, and then these gentlemen were promptly met by experts for the defense who were able to deny the possibility of such an identification. This feature of the case, mere even than the length of time consumed and the endless technical discussions, will call attention ag.ain to the marked inferiorityjpf American criminal procedure as compared with that abroad. There was a waste of time and money and there was an unconscionable waste of words. There were times during the testimony of the experts when the recondite investigations into science became almost farcical and made this

grave case a subject of jocular mention throughout the country. As a result of all this the jury when it retired for a consideration of the law and the evidence found it impossible to unite on any verdict satisfactory to all of the twelve men. After spending aixtysix hours in heated discussion a majority numbering nine men gave up the attempt to persuade the other three that Luetgert should be convicted and Judge Tuthill let them all go home. While the majority of the public may believe that Luetgert was guilty of the terrible crime laid to his charge, there has always been room for a lingering doubt in many minds that would operate powerfully on a juror’s mind to prevent conviction. But for this lurking fear of doing an irreparable injustice to an innocent man the circumstances of this case would have placed Luetgert beyond the pale of human sympathy. The trial with its disagreement has blasted his life forever —a wrong beyond repair if he is innocent, a righteous retribution if the circumstantial testimony of the deserted factory and its hideous evidences of crime told the truth.

ADOLPH L. LUETGERT.

MRS. LUETGERT