WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE?

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 23, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 25.

WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE?

HERE is a sad story which comes from Terre Haute. A highly sensational scene took place Thursday in the court room in that city. Everyone will have a feeling of sympathy for the prisoner, who acted as his own attorney, and made the brief but forcible argument in his own favor.

The special was as follows:—

"When Jim Godsey, aged twenty-six, was placed on trial to-day for forging his father's name to an order on a hat store by which he got two hats, which he pawned, he had no legal counsel, and declined to have any appointed by the court. When his father had testified that he had not signed the order, the son cross-examined him. The prosecuting attorney submitted the case without argument, saying that guilt was too clearly established to need argument. The young man then addressed the jury, and soon tears were trickling down the cheeks of several jurors, and all in the court room were deeply moved.

"He told how he had spent his life from infancy until two years ago in his father's saloon and gambling house, 'the wickedest place of its kind in Terre Haute. For two years,' he said, 'this father of mine, with one foot in the grave, pretended to repent, and joined the church. How could I be other than what I am, raised among thieves, gamblers, and blacklegs? Before I was able to see over a pool table, he,' pointing at his father, 'put a box at the side of a table and taught me how to play. The first man that taught me to cheat at cards was my father. Some of you may have a son, but, gentlemen of the jury, you would not send your son to the penitentiary for $6.20. I stand here without a friend on earth. You may send me to the penitentiary, but I am not wholly responsible for what I am.'

"When he had proceeded thus far, the young man broke down and sobbed as if his heart would break. The jury went out at 11 o'clock this morning, and at 9 o'clock tonight returned a verdict giving him five years in the penitentiary."—Vincennes, Ind., Commercial.