金融英语保险语证卷业务相关辅导27
SENTENCES AND EXECUTIONSOn June 29, 1865, the Military Commission met in secret session to begin its review of the evidence in the seven-week long trial. A guilty verdict could come with a majority vote of the nine-member commission; death sentences required the votes of six members. The next day, it reached its verdicts. The Commission found each of the prisoners guilty of at least one of the conspiracy charges. Four of the prisoners (Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, George Atzerodt, and David Herold) were sentenced "to be hanged by the neck until he be dead." Samuel Arnold, Dr. Samuel Mudd and Michael O'Laughlen were sentenced to "hard labor for life, at such place at the President shall direct." Edman Spangler received a six-year sentence.
The Commission forwarded its sentences and the trial record to President Johnson for his review. Five of the nine Commission members, in the transmitted record, recommended to the President--because of "her sex and age"--that he reduce Mary Surratt's punishment to life in prison. On July 5, Johnson approved all of the Commission's sentences, including the death sentence for Surratt.
The next day General Hartrandft informed the prisoners of their sentences. He told the four condemned prisoners that they would hang the next day.
Surratt's lawyers mounted a frantic effort to save their client's life, hurriedly preparing a petition for habeas corpus that evening. The next morning, Surratt's attorneys succeeded in convincing Judge Wylie of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia to issue the requested writ. President Johnson quashed the effort to save Surratt from an afternoon hanging when he issued an order suspending the writ of habeas corpus "in cases such as this."
Shortly after one-thirty on the afternoon of July 7, 1865, the trap of the gallows installed in the courtyard of the Old Arsenal Building was sprung, and the four condemned prisoners fell to their deaths. Reporters covering the event reported that the last words from the gallows stand came from George Atzerodt who said, just before he fell, "May we meet in another world."
EPILOGUE AND THE CONSPIRACY AS NOW UNDERSTOOD
In the summer of 1867, John Surratt, having been captured in Egypt, faced trial in a civilian court for having participated in a conspiracy to assassinate the president. The jury was unable to reach a verdict, with eight jurors voting "not guilty" and four voting "guilty." In August, 1867, Surratt was released from prison. Three years later he began a public lecture tour describing his association with the conspirators and proclaiming his innocence.
Military personnel escorted Dr. Samuel Mudd, Michael O'Laughlen, Edman Spangler and Samuel Arnold to Fort Jefferson in Dry Tortugas, Florida. Two years later, a yellow fever epidemic swept the prison, killing O'Laughlen and the prison's doctor, among many others. Upon the death of the prison doctor, Mudd assumed duty as chief medical officer at the prison. On March 1, 1869, Mudd and the other three imprisoned conspirators received an eleventh-hour presidential pardon from President Johnson.
The last surviving convicted conspirator was Samuel Arnold, who died in 1906 after writing a detailed confession of his role in the conspiracy to kidnap President Lincoln.
Over the years, critics have attacked the verdicts, sentences, and procedures of the 1865 Military Commission. These critics have called the sentences unduly harsh, and criticized the rule allowing the death penalty to be imposed with a two-thirds vote of Commission members. The hanging of Mary Surratt, the first woman ever executed by the United States, has been a particular focus of criticism. Critics also have complained about the standard of proof, the lack of opportunity for defense counsel to adequately prepare for the trial, the withholding of potentially exculpatory evidence, and the Commission's rule forbidding the prisoners from testifying on their own behalf. The critics have a point: The 1865 trial of the Lincoln conspirators did fall short of commonly accepted norms of procedure and the verdicts--by modern standards--seem harsh.
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