house increased his reputation by his effi ciency and zealous discharge of his duties, supplemented by a magnanimity for which his professional brethren have always given him due credit. An early case that he thus conducted was State v. Kingsbury, reported in 58th Maine, page 238. The respondent was in dicted for procuring one James Kitchen to set fire to a church in China. The motive for this crime was a desire to be revenged upon prominent members of the church so ciety who had caused Kingsbury to be pun ished for repeated violations of the " Maine Law." He was a prominent business man and had the sympathy and active support of many friends, including all opposed to the law. He was ably defended by Messrs. Pillsbury and Clay, and was convicted at the second trial, in March, 1870, before Judge Danforth, who sentenced him to three years in the State's prison. In the following Oc tober (1870) occurred the capital case of State v. Edward H. Hoswell, indicted for the murder of John B. Laflin at Hallowell, in which Attorney-General Thomas B. Reed made his first appearance for the govern ment. County-Attorney Whitehouse pre pared the case for trial and made the open ing argument. The trial became notable for the defense of momentary insanity as urged by the counsel for the defendant, Messrs. Pillsbury and Libbey — the last named afterwards associate justice of this court. This defense had recently been suc cessfully employed in the Cole-Hiscock and Richardson-McFarland cases in New York, similar cases, where the motive for the hom icide was the prisoner's jealousy of his wife on account of her alleged intimacy with the deceased. But County Attorney Whitehouse, who carefully prepared the case for the State, anticipated this line of defense, and fully exploited it in his address to the jury, some extracts from which are given here. In alluding to this defense, Mr. Whitehouse said : "We are not here in be
half of the government to defend adulterers; we are not here to bring desolation upon happy homes or to destroy any of the sacred interests of society. Neither are we here to countenance the doctrine of assassi nation or private vengeance. We. are here to ask you to protect society against all of these crimes by a just and fearless adminis tration of the law. We are here to ask that when a citizen of Maine is charged with crime, he shall be permitted to go into the people's court and be heard, as this pris oner is to be heard, and be punished only when found guilty by the judgment of his peers. We are here asking that when an atrocious crime has been committed, the perpetrator shall not escape upon any false plea of frenzy or temporary insanity, or any other plea in violation of law and evidence. We are here asking that no man shall be the self-appointed avenger of his own wrongs, that no man shall assume to act, in a mo ment of passion, as judge and jury, and condemn and execute a fellow citizen, un heard and untried, when a single word of explanation might demonstrate his inno cence. . . . Why, gentlemen, human laws are enacted and penalties imposed for the special purpose of strengthening men's power of self-control in the community, and holding them up to a strict sense of duty and accountability. If a paroxysm of rage or fit of passion arising from morbid jeal ousy, or from any other cause, can become legal insanity, who can be called sane? Who would be responsible for crime? What would prevent all offenders from stalking unwhipped of justice? Where is our pub lic security? Who would be safe in his life or his property? If one may plead an out rage upon his feelings as a husband in justifi cation of a great crime, another with equal right may plead a serious injury to his per son or property. "If the citizens of Hallowell, on the night of this tragedy, had assumed in violation of all law to act as judge and jury, and had
