The trial of Patrick Eugene Prendergast was held in December 1893 in the Cook County Criminal Court. Prendergast was tried on the charge of murder in the first degree for his actions in having assassinated Carter Harrison III (mayor of Chicago). Prendergast had been motivated to assassinate Harrison by a delusion: Prendergast held that he was entitled to be appointed the city's corporation counsel (a role which he held no qualification for), and had been wrongfully deprived by Harrison of such an appointment. The central question in dispute during the trial was the state of Prendergast's sanity as it related to the commission of Harrison's killing. Prendergast's defense attorneys entered a plea in his defense that he was not guilty by reason of insanity. They did not contest that Prendergast had killed Harrison, instead offering the defense that he had done so while under the control of an insanity that legally rendered him non-culpable for the murder. Prosecutors, including Jacob J. Kern (the Cook County state's attorney) and lead prosecutor A. S. Trude, argued that Prendergast had been sane and was culpable of murdering Harrison. The trial was presided by Judge Theodore Brentano of the Superior Court of Cook County. The jury delivered a verdict finding Prendergast guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and sentenced him to death by hanging.
Harrison's assassination had been a major news item, and the trial attracted great attention. Public sentiment was unsympathetic towards Prendergast, and contemporary discourse widely disbelieved the argument that had been made in his defense. United States news media and leading figures in its politics and business lauded Prendergast's conviction and sentencing. The popular view expressed was that his execution would serve as an example to deter other "cranks" from carrying out similar acts of violence against government officials. In contrast to contemporary discourse on the trial, modern retrospectives often believe Prendergast to have been insane, and the jury to have been incorrect in its judgement that he was not.
After he was sentenced to be executed, attorneys Clarence Darrow, James S. Harlan, and Stephen S. Gregory represented Prendergast in efforts to appeal this sentence. A petition was granted for an inquiry to determine the current state of Prendergast's sanity. At the time, Illinois had a law which forbade the state from carrying out the execution of individuals currently suffering from insanity. This statute protected those that had become insane subsequent to their commission of crime from being executed until such a time that they were determined to be rid of their insanity. The jury in this inquiry found Prendergast to be currently sane, and he was executed by hanging on July 13, 1894.
The trial was considered one of the most remarkable trials of the nineteenth century.
Background Relevant contemporary legal doctrine on insanity At the time of the trial, courts in the United States used the M'Naghten rules (derived from British precedent established in the year 1843) as their test for criminal insanity. In the state of Illinois (as well as other parts of the United States) this was supplemented by doctrine centered on the concept of irresistible impulse, which considered that simple knowledge of "right and wrong" was insufficient to prove sanity in cases in which there was still not a possibility of self-control. While parts of the United States were already employing the concept of diminished capacity, Illinois had not formally adopted it (and would not until decades later).
At the time, expert witnesses for matters of sanity tended to be medical doctors regardless of whether they held any specialty granting them understanding of behavior. The specialized fields of psychiatry and psychology had not yet been properly established. Additionally, nonprofessionals were held by courts as permissible expert witnesses. This meant that a mere "common sense" view of sanity could be admitted as expert opinion. Resultingly, when the prosecution brought a medical doctor to testify that Prendergast's display of fear while jailed was an indication of sanity, the medical doctor was not an alienist (psychiatrist). During the trial, several medical doctors testified on behalf of the prosecution to assert that, while Prendergast was paranoid, he still knew right from wrong and that he was capable of standing trial for the murder. Expert testimony (by the era's understanding of expertise) made up a very large portion of the testimony heard in the trial.
Prendergast's life
Prendergast was born on 6 April 1868 in Cloonamore townland, Inishbofin, an island off the west coast of Ireland. He was baptised in St Colman's Church on 12 April 1868 Inishbofin Baptismal Register His parents were Ellen King (1837–1914) and Patrick Prendergast (1840–1886), both of whom were described as teachers at their marriage in Inishbofin on 2 July 1865.Clifden 1865 Vol 14 page 81 His grandfather, William Prendergast, who lost an arm in Pamplona, was an army pensioner who was reported to have died insane. His mother had "repeated attacks of hysterics" and his father died of consumption.
Prendergast was reported to have suffered a severe head injury from a fall at the age of four, from which he was unconscious for a long period of time and suffered vomiting for four weeks after. He was described as a peculiar child, solitary, irritable and excitable, with a poor memory who did poorly in school. Patrick arrived in New York on 20 May 1873, aged 5, traveling with his brother William, aged 8, on the SS France. He left home at 16 because of imaginary persecution and by 18 had developed grandiose ideas of his capabilities and became a fanatic for the single-tax promoted by Henry George.
Prendergast became a newspaper distributor in Chicago, where he lobbied for improvements in Chicago's railroad level crossings, which he saw as a danger to the public. He supported Carter Harrison's 1890s election campaigns under the delusion that if Harrison won the election, Prendergast himself would receive an appointment as the city's corporation counsel. Prendergast had a fixation with writing postcards. In order to support Carter Harrison's pursuit to regain the mayoralty, Prendergast sent rambling postcards to prominent Chicagoans urging them to vote for Harrison. Among those who received such a postcard was prominent lawyer A. S. Trude, who would later prosecute the case against Prendergast in the murder trial that followed the assassination. Prendergast sent these postcards in support of Harrison for more than two years before Harrison was successful in winning the 1893 Chicago mayoral election. Prendergast believed that his letters had been responsible for Harrison's success in the election.
Prendergast visited Chicago City Hall under the delusion that he had been appointed corporation counsel by Harrison. After Prendergast was insistent to a clerk that he held the position, he was brought to meet Adolph Kraus, the incumbent corporation counsel, who showed Prendergast his office and teased him by facetiously asking if he wanted the job. While Prendergast did not have the education or qualifications that required for the office, he was nevertheless angered that he had not been appointed by Harrison to it. After Harrison had spent six months in office without appointing him corporation council or granting him any recognition, Prendergast began to desire revenge against Harrison for the perceived slight.
Prendergast wrote threatening letters to both Harrison and Kraus, a fact which was quickly discovered by investigators following the assassination. One letter to Kraus read, "I want your job. Do not be a fool. Resign. Third and final notice."
Assassination of Harrison
Angry at Harrison for having not appointed him to the office, Prendergast visited Harrison at his home on October 28, 1893, after ringing the door bell Prendergast was admitted by a maid who went to wake the mayor (who was taking a nap on a sofa in the parlor). As Harrison stepped into the hallway from the parlor, Prendergast approached and shot the mayor three times with a .38 revolver, hitting him first in the abdomen above the navel, a second time under the left arm with a shot that pierced his heart, and a third time at point-blank range through the left hand.
Hearing the gunfire, Bartha Riesberg (Harrison's coachman), ran towards the site of the shooting with a pistol of his own, firing three times at the escaping Prendergast without hitting him, while avoiding being hit when Prendergast returned fire. Mortally wounded, Harrison died in his home at 8:25 p.m.
The escaping assassin was chased down Ashland Avenue by several citizens and a police officer, who he evaded. Prendergast went to the Des Plaines Street police station, he surrendered himself. He still had the gun in his possession. When interviewed by police, he gave varying stories as to his motive, including the failed appointment and the mayor's failure to elevate train track crossings. The smell of burned powder and the revolver's empty chambers affirmed to the police department that Prendergast was telling the truth.
Prendergast was taken from the Des Plaines Street station to the Central Station, located downtown, where the building was quickly surrounded by a crowd of 5,000 people. Fearing potential mob violence, at 11:15 p.m., Prendergast was stealthily hurried into a wagon and taken to another station located on the North Side of the city, where he was lodged in the county jail pending trial.
Harrison's assassination was met with a significant national reaction, and was one of the most sensationalized events in then-recent memory. Media reports in the days immediately after the assassination questioned Prendergast's sanity. Initially, the public viewed Prendergast as a mentally troubled individual. However, as more about his background was learned, the public began to view him more as an angered egomaniac that had killed as an act of revenge.
Investigations, indictment, and arraignment Harrison's autopsy and coroner's inquest
The autopsy of Harrison was conducted by Dr. Ludvig Hektoen and Dr. Louis G. Mitchell. As a witness during the prosecution's presentation in the trial, Mitchell testified that he had found five wounds on Harrison's corpse. He found that one of the first two bullets that had been fired had passed through one of Harrison's finger. He found that the bullets from final three shots lodged in Harrison's corpse: one bullet had been found in the median plane of the body, and that one was found four inches to the right and a little below Harrison's heart, and that another was found in Harrison's back below the tip of his scapula (shoulderblade). The three bullets were extracted, and would be used by prosecutors as evidence in the trial. Mitchell would testify that, besides the bullet wounds, Harrison's body appeared to have been in remarkable health for his age. Hektoen testified in agreement with Mitchell's assessment.
The morning following the assassination, James McHale (the Cook County coroner) conducted the coroner's inquest at the Harrison residence. During the inquest, Prendergast (accompanied by guards) stood in the foyer where the assassination had occurred while witnesses gave testimony in the south back parlor of the residence. The witnesses included Harrison's son William Preston, maid Mary Hansen, and coachman Barth Reisberg. The only other two witnesses interviewed were police sergeants. Before coroner’s jury, witnesses identified Prendergast as the killer and described the events of the previous night.
Prendergast communicated sympathy for Harrison's bereaved family, but refused to speak to the inquest jurors.Also available at: