by Bruno, Joe
Blagden then said, “I think we are all agreed. Aren’t we?”
None of the jurors dissented.
However, Blagden was concerned he and his fellow jurors had not taken long enough to come to a decision. He stepped out of the jury room and asked one of the courtroom attendants how long the first Becker jury had been out. He was told that the first jury took eight hours to find Becker guilty. This confirmed in Blagden’s mind that maybe, not to appear like they had come to a hasty decision, the jurors should stay in the jury room somewhat longer. So Blagden and his 11 fellow jurors sat in the jury room for one more hour without saying another word about the case. The smoking juror smoked, and several other jurors closed their eyes and tried to take a nap.
When Blagden thought the time was right, he sent a message to Judge Seabury that they had reached their decision. Ten minutes later, the 12 jurors filed into the courtroom.
So, in fact, it did not take nearly two hours and five ballots to convict Becker; there was only one ballot and the entire deliberations took a mere 40 minutes.
Several of the jurors, who were approached by the press in the following days, refused to discuss their deliberations, but some were quite chatty. One juror, who asked that his name not be revealed in the newspapers, said, “I was astonished when I read in the newspapers that we had cast five ballots. That might create the impression that there was a wide difference of opinion. As a matter of fact, we were practically of one mind from the beginning.”
This same juror was asked if the summation of any of the lawyers had influenced the jury. The anonymous juror said, “I can’t answer positively for anyone but myself, but I believe District Attorney Whitman’s brilliant summing up wholly convinced one of the jurors. He came into the jury room a changed man after that speech.”
Then came the million-dollar question: did this juror think Becker had received a fair trial?
“I certainly do,” he said. “And I include in this the care and attention in the jury room.”
The anonymous juror then added something that gave credence to Becker’s co-counsel, John B. Johnson’s, strenuous objection to Judge Seabury’s charge to the jury.
“Justice Seabury’s charge helped a great deal,” the anonymous juror said. “It put the case in sequence that made everything clear and distinct.”
Unfortunately, that was not the role of Judge Seabury, but instead of District Attorney Whitman. So there can be no doubt Judge Seabury’s inclination to side with the prosecution played a huge part in Becker’s second conviction.
Juror No. 6 was Walter Goodyear, the owner of a bookstore on Fifth Avenue and someone who considered himself an amateur psychologist. When a reporter asked if he could interview him about the Becker trial, Goodyear readily agreed.
At this interview, which took place in Goodyear’s bookstore, Goodyear surrounded himself with numerous books on psychology, to make himself appear an expert on the subject. Without much prodding from the reporter, Goodyear admitted he had applied his method of psychological analysis to Rose, Vallon, Becker, and others during the trial, which helped him reach the guilty verdict.
Goodyear categorized Rose, Webber, and Becker in the same class, which he called, “The Underworld.” Goodyear said his study of these men in the courtroom revealed to him “common motives, common ideas, and common avenues of thinking and acting.”
“My placing Becker in the same class with men like Rose, put Becker into the same groove in which these men found themselves,” Goodyear said. “Thus parallel lines of thought of Becker and Rose could easily be explained.”
The reporter asked Goodyear if he had considered Mrs. Helen Becker in reaching a verdict.
“She added sympathy in the case, of course,” Goodyear said. “I saw her every day, but she did not weigh in the evidence. You can well believe that the verdict was a strain on all of us. This is reflected in the fact that some of the jurors at first favored a lesser degree of punishment. But sympathy could not modify the verdict justified by facts, could it?”
After his second Becker win, District Attorney Charles Whitman was the “toast of the town.” In just the two days after the verdict had been rendered, Whitman received hundreds of congratulatory letters and telegrams. One man sent Whitman a long letter (which Whitman released to his adoring press) that referred to Whitman’s victory as the “triumph of the right.” The letter ended with the man saying that he would immediately send Whitman a rug “on which you can place your feet and rest.”
The Mayor of New York City, John Purroy Mitchel, also got into the act.
Mitchel sent Whitman a letter (which again Whitman released to the press) that said, “I have just heard of the outcome of the Becker case. The whole community is under obligations to you. Your work has been splendid.”
Whitman did a few victory laps in certain New York City bars and restaurants, strutting his success in prosecuting Becker twice and winning twice. Then he easily took the Republican nomination for Governor, winning the primary against Harvey D. Hineman by the lopsided vote of 120,073 to 61,952.
In November, the Governor’s race also went easily to Whitman. He defeated the incumbent acting-governor Martin Glynn by a vote of 686,701 to 412,252. On Jan. 1, 1915, Charles Whitman was sworn in as the 41st Governor of New York State.
This did not bode well for Charles Becker.
JAMES MARSHALL TAP DANCES AROUND THE TRUTH - TWICE
On February 13, 1915 a series of events occurred concerning James Marshall, the Negro who had testified at Becker’s second trial. These events resembled a comedy of errors viewed in a funhouse mirror.
First, Marshall, a professional tap dancer, who was then living in Philadelphia, gave his wife an early Valentine’s present by beating the crap out of her while he was in a drunken stupor. Marshall’s wife called the police to make a formal complaint, and both husband and wife were hustled down to the police station. While Mrs. Marshall was giving her statement to the police, she happened to mention, that in addition to being a brute, her husband was also an habitual liar. In fact, Mrs. Marshall said Mr. Marshall had lied under oath in Becker’s second trial when he said that he had seen Becker with Jack Rose on a Harlem street corner – the infamous “Harlem Conference.”
Two Philadelphia scribes overheard Mrs. Marshall’s rantings, and after putting two and two together, they figured they had a hell of a story.
The two scribes hurried to Marshall’s cell where Marshall was trying to sleep off his inebriation, and woke him. Marshall, still very drunk, admitted that he had committed perjury at Becker’s trial. Marshall said he had done so because he had been threatened with prosecution by Whitman’s assistant Fredrick Groehl. Marshall also said he had been paid to lie on the witness stand by Groehl.
The newspapermen wrote their stories and the following day, Becker’s attorney Manton heard about Marshall’s flip-flop. He sent his assistant John Johnson to Philadelphia, where Johnson met with Marshall in the offices of the Philadelphia Daily Ledger. In front of Johnson and several of the newspaper’s staff, Johnson swore an affidavit, that according to the Ledger, “repudiating his words (at the Becker trial) and accusing an Assistant District Attorney (Groehl) of forcing him to testify under threat of arrest.”
To add more grist to the mill, Marshall said Groehl had put an earlier affidavit before him where he (Marshall) had sworn false information about a raid made by Becker. Marshall admitted he had done so under the fictitious name of “Moore.” Marshall said this false affidavit was used as a lever by District Attorney Whitman to force him to testify for the prosecution at Becker’s second trial.
Marshall said in his Philadelphia affidavit, “I met District Attorney Groehl who asked me at once what I knew about a meeting between Becker and Rose. I explained to him that I didn’t know Jack Rose and had never seen him.
“I was then asked, ‘Did you see Becker, Jack Rose, and Bridgey Webber talking at the corner of 124th Street and Seventh Avenue,’ and I said I did not. I said I
knew Becker, but I did not know the other men and can’t say I saw them talking with Becker.”
Marshall said that Groehl had told him he could be arrested immediately and held as a material witness for Becker’s trial. Marshall said he told Groehl that he had several theatrical engagements (as a tap dancer) in Washington, D.C. Marshall said that, with Groehl’s permission, he went to Washington, D.C. and an “attaché” from Whitman’s office accompanied him on the trip. During this trip, Marshall admitted that Whitman’s offices gave him three separate checks for his expenses: two for $70, and one for $150.
“Life was very pleasant for me there,” Marshall said. “It was nothing but theaters and auto rides through the park all day long. I went to the theater almost every afternoon and never got up before 11 in the morning.”
Marshall then added, “I never knew Jack Rose. My only knowledge of Rose was what Mr. Groehl told me and what I read in the papers.”
At this point, Marshall was interrupted by Becker’s co-counsel Johnson, who said to Marshall, “So you say now that you don’t know whether or not it was Rose who met Becker that night, but you testified it was Rose because the prosecution told you to do so, is that right?”
Marshall said, “Yes sir. That was it.”
As soon as the ink was dry on Marshall’s affidavit, Johnson hustled Marshall to New York City to see Becker’s chief counsel Manton, in Manton’s offices at 31 Nassau Street. There, Marshall confirmed everything he had sworn to in Philadelphia.
Then Marshall decided to call his mother, which led to another sequence of astounding events.
At the precise time Marshall was phoning his mother from Manton’s office, Assistant District Attorney Groehl, angry as hell at what Marshall had done in Philadelphia, was entering the basement apartment of Marshall’s mother, at 129 East Seventy-Sixth Street, where Mrs. Marshall was the janitor. When Groehl heard it was Marshall on the phone, he grabbed the receiver from Marshall’s mother.
Groehl growled into the phone, “Did you make a statement or an affidavit in Philadelphia as the papers this morning said you did?”
Marshall, a professional tap dancer, did a little two-step. “No sir, I did not.”
Within an hour, Marshall was with Groehl in Marshall’s mother’s apartment. There, Marshall told Groehl that he had been drunk in Philadelphia, and that it was John Johnson who had dictated the affidavit, then paid him $2,500 to sign it.
Groehl had Marshall sign a second affidavit denying everything in the Philadelphia affidavit he had signed the day before. This effectively ended Marshall as a credible witness, either against Becker or for Becker in Becker’s upcoming appeal.
The day after Marshall’s monumental turnabout, new District Attorney Charles A. Perkins, who had been appointed by Governor Whitman the day Whitman morphed from D.A. to Governor, told the press he doubted Marshall would be indicted for perjury, “because the contradicting affidavits Marshall signed on two consecutive days were signed in different states.”
When Manton was told about Marshall’s about-face, he said, “My opinion is that the Negro’s word is no good. I am independently convinced that he did not see Becker and Jack Rose talking on 124th and Seventh Avenue, and in admitting this in Philadelphia he was telling the truth. But I wouldn’t count on him sticking to the truth. Nothing he says can be counted on without corroboration.”
Manton did say he was in the process of filing an appeal, without Marshall’s cooperation. Manton didn’t go into explicit detail, but he did say, “In regard to the testimony of Mr. Rose, there are more than 60 contradictions in what he said at the first trial, compared to what he said at the second trial. Most of these contradictions are about his conversations with Becker.”
CHARLES BECKER’S FINAL APPEALS
Manton went ahead and filed his appeal, but it was to no avail. Part of Manton’s written appeal pointed out the unreliability of Marshall as to being a witness to the “Harlem Conference.” However, the Court of Appeals accepted Marshall’s testimony in the Becker trial to be true, and not the affidavit Marshall signed in Philadelphia.
In opposition to Manton’s motion, New York City Assistant District Attorney Groehl had filed another affidavit signed by Marshall to the Court of Appeals, which said: “I testified to the truth in everything that I said at the Becker trial, and I do not want to change or take back anything that I have said, and if I am called upon as a witness again, I will tell the same things because they are true.”
Justice Weeks, to whom Manton filed his appeal in court, was unimpressed with Manton’s argument. Justice Weeks told Manton, “My first impression is that the affidavit is manifestly an ingenious invasion of Marshall’s testimony and does not come within the legal provisions for granting a new trial.”
Justice Weeks then took Manton to task.
He said, “Does Marshall say he did not see Becker talking to one of two men at the corner of 124th Street and Seventh Avenue?”
“He does not,” Manton admitted.
“Why does not your affidavit set forth its contents in language that cannot be misunderstood?” Justice Weeks said. “An affidavit bearing on an important fact can be made in a few clear words without circumvention. The affidavit of Marshall said that he did see Becker speak to a man. It says that he later identified that man as Jack Rose. Where an affidavit is produced to interfere with the orderly process of an appeal, it should be so clear as to be impossible to be misunderstood.”
A second part of Manton’s appeal questioned Judge Seabury’s impartiality in Becker’s second trial. Manton’s appeal stated that, “The facts and law were arrayed and marshaled by Judge Seabury in a way highly inimicable to defendant’s rights and wholly devoid of any serious and anxious desire to their preservation.”
However, the Court of Appeals did not buy Manton’s argument concerning Judge Seabury’s conduct in the trial (by this time, Judge Seabury was a member of the Court of Appeals himself, but he recused himself from reviewing Manton’s appeal). In the end, for some baffling reason, the Court of Appeals somehow found Judge Seabury’s conduct to be exemplary.
The Court of Appeals said: “The most sedulous mare to preserve the rights of the defendant was manifested, not only in the charge, but throughout the whole trial, and the assertion seems both unwarranted and underserved.”
The final vote from the Court of Appeal was 5-1 in favor of denying Becker’s appeal. Justice William Bartlett wrote the majority decision. The lone dissenter was Judge John Hogan.
At this point in time, there were only four means available for Becker to escape the death penalty. They were:
A plea for Executive Clemency from Governor Whitman, the very man who twice successfully prosecuted Becker. (Fat chance)
An application for a new trial based on new-found evidence. (There was none)
An application for writ of habeas Corpus in Federal District court, based on an allegation of violation of Becker’s constitutional rights. (Longer than a longshot)
An application directly to the Supreme Court. (Worth a shot)
On July 9, 1915, just days before Becker’s execution (scheduled for July 15), his new high-powered co-counsel, Bourke Cockran, made an impassioned plea to United States Supreme Court Justice Charles E. Hughes at Hughes’ summer home on a lake in Maine.
Winston Churchill had once said of Cockran, “I have never seen his like, or in some respects his equal.”
In his request for a “writ of error,” Cochran argued that the agreement made by then-New York City Assistant District Attorney Frank Moss with Harry Vallon, Jack Rose, and Bridgey Webber, “practically demanded that the three informants, in order to avoid prosecution, should tie Becker up to the murder of Herman Rosenthal.”
The second point on which Cockran sought the writ of error was that the defendant Becker was denied a change of venue. This had been requested on the grounds that, even before the trial started, District Attorney Whitman had released statements to the press which could influence pos
sible jurors against Becker.
The third point Cockran argued to Justice Hughes, was that Governor Whitman, the man to whom Backer would have to make his plea for Executive Clemency, was not the unbiased person the Constitution holds should pass on this plea.
A week later, Cockran’s three pleas were shot down by United States Supreme Court Justice Hughes. However, Cockran was able to get Becker’s execution date pushed back two weeks to July 30, 1915. During this time, Cockran said he would prepare a new affidavit to the New York Supreme Court asking for a new trial.
On the same day Cochran saw Justice Hughes, Charles Plitt visited Governor Whitman in Whitman’s Executive Chamber in Albany. Plitt told the press he supplied Whitman with new evidence of police graft in connection with Becker’s case. According to a report in the Washington Post, “The Governor did examine the statement Plitt gave him, but gave Plitt little encouragement. Governor Whitman told Plitt to put the statement in legal form and that then he would examine it.”
However, Plitt felt his statement was of great importance; much greater importance than Whitman had indicated to him. Plitt told the press that his statement, which was prepared with Becker’s knowledge, would “prove sensational and save Becker’s life.”
As he left the Executive Chamber in Albany, Plitt said, “Charles Becker will never go to the chair.”
At that point in time, the only way for Becker to be spared from the electric chair was for Governor Whitman to grant Becker clemency. Doing so was not unprecedented for a United States Governor. In fact, this is exactly what had happened on July 19, 1915, less than two weeks before Becker’s execution.
Leo Frank, a manager in a pencil factory in Georgia, was convicted of killing a 14-year-old girl named Mary Phagan. The chief witness against Frank was an ex-convict named Jim Conley, who some people, including ex-Georgia congressman W.M. Howard, thought was the murderer himself. Thanks to Howard’s pleas to Georgia Governor John M. Slaton, and the aggressive intervention by a Chicago group called the “Chicago Anti-Capital Punishment Society,” the night before Frank was scheduled to be executed, Governor Slaton commuted Frank’s sentence from death to life imprisonment (the Chicago Anti-Capital Punishment Society also collected signatures on petitions to induce Governor Whitman to commute Charles Becker’s death sentence, but to no avail).
