Deep Water: Joseph P. Macheca: Trial

Showing posts with label Trial. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 2, 2021

Disturbance at trial of accused killers

On this date in 1891, one of nine accused Mafiosi, standing trial in New Orleans for plotting and carrying out the assassination of Police Chief David Hennessy, created a sensation in the courtroom.

There had been just one day of prosecution testimony in the case, which began on Saturday, Feb. 28. Manuel Polizzi already had been identified by witnesses as one of the five gunmen who participated in the October 1890 murder of the police chief.

When brought into the courtroom with his codefendants on Monday morning, March 2, Polizzi hesitated to take his seat. He talked loudly in Italian and tried to get the attention of Judge Joshua Baker. Two deputies forced him to sit, but he once again stood and addressed Baker rapidly in his native tongue, waving his arms and punching at his own chest as he spoke. As a deputy attempted to force the defendant into his chair, Baker instructed, "Let him alone."

The judge asked defendant Charles Matranga (the reputed leader of the regional Mafia organization and an accused accessory to the Hennessy assassination) what was happening. Matranga replied only that Polizzi wanted an interpreter. "Talk to him and find out what he wants," Baker said. Matranga and Polizzi exchanged a few words, and Matranga told the judge, "He don't want to talk to me." Baker then attempted to use defendant Joseph Macheca (a politically influential, Mafia-linked businessman who also was an indicted accessory in the Hennessy killing) as an interpreter, but Polizzi was entirely unreceptive to that as well.

Before Baker could send for an independent interpreter, a defense attorney objected. "We would like an opportunity to speak to this man ourselves," attorney Lionel Adams said. "He is our client and it is our right."

Noting that Polizzi clearly had something he wished to express directly to the court, Baker brushed aside the complaint and sent for an interpreter. Baker met with Polizzi and the interpreter, as well as attorneys from both sides of the case, in his chambers.

Polizzi

Polizzi's statement to the judge was kept secret. However, when the group returned to open court, defense counsel Thomas J. Semmes announced that the defense team could no longer represent Polizzi. That appeared to confirm the widespread suspicion that Polizzi was turning state's evidence, but prosecutors apparently were unimpressed with the quality of Polizzi's statement and did not separate him from the case. Lead prosecutor Charles H. Luzenberg would not comment on the matter. (Though he did not speak of it, thanks to an undercover Pinkerton operative inserted into the Orleans Parish Prison with the defendants, Luzenberg possessed information others did not have about Polizzi's mental state and its underlying causes.) Another defense attorney was selected to represent Polizzi, and the trial went on.

Polizzi was visibly afraid and tried to keep away from his codefendants. The court agreed to Polizzi's request to be held in separate quarters from the other accused.

Newspapermen learned that Polizzi made a confession "of a startling character" to Judge Baker, and they reported on his paranoid behavior. Defense attorneys told the press that Polizzi insisted both that he knew all about the conspiracy to murder Chief Hennessy and yet also took no part in the killing. They suggested that Polizzi was crazy. Reporters said they learned the defendant acknowledged being present when $4,000 was divided up among men selected to be the triggermen in the Hennessy assassination. He claimed, however, to have been at his home on Julia Street at the time witnesses saw him take part in the shooting of Chief Hennessy on Girod Street.

Just a few days after giving his statement to Judge Baker, Polizzi created an even greater disturbance, as he had an emotional breakdown in open court. When he was removed to the office of the sheriff, he attempted to throw himself through a closed window.

The trial continued until March 13, when a jury failed to reach agreement on the guilt of Polizzi and two other accused assassins and found the six remaining defendants not guilty. The New Orleans community became aware of evidence of jury tampering in the case, and Polizzi was one of eleven Italian inmates lynched at Orleans Parish Prison the next morning. Only much later was Polizzi's apparently irrational behavior at trial fully explained...

For more about this subject:
Deep Water:
Joseph P. Macheca and the
Birth of the American Mafia
by Thomas Hunt and
Martha Macheca Sheldon
(Second Edition, Createspace, 2010)

Sources:

"Desperate Politz," New York World, March 7, 1891, p. 1.
"Hennessy assassin confesses," New York Tribune, March 3, 1891, p. 1.
"Hennessy murder," New Orleans Times-Democrat, March 3, 1891, p. 6.
"Hennessy murder," New Orleans Times-Democrat, March 7, 1891, p. 3.
"The Hennessy case," New Orleans Daily Picayune, March 3, 1891, p. 3.
"Hennessy's murderers," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 6, 1891, p. 2.
"The Mafia at bay," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 3, 1891, p. 2.
"The New Orleans vendetta," New York Sun, March 3, 1891, p. 2.

Saturday, February 27, 2021

Jury complete, 1891 Mafia trial begins

A lengthy jury selection process concluded Friday, February 27, 1891, and the trial of nine men accused of the assassination of New Orleans Police Chief David Hennessy began with the reading of the indictment by Court Clerk Richard Screven.

Screven read:

The grand jurors of the State of Louisiana, duly impaneled and sworn in and for the body of the Parish of Orleans, in the name and by the authority of the said state, upon their oath, present:
That one Peter Natali, one Antonio Scaffidi, one Antonio Bagnetto, one Manuel Politz, one Antonio Marchesi, one Pietro Monastero, one Bastian Incardona, one Salvador Sinceri, one Loretto Comitz, one Charles Traina and one Charles Poitza, late of the Parish of Orleans, on the 16th day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and ninety, with force of arms,... feloniously did shoot and murder one David D. Hennessy with a dangerous weapon, to-wit, a gun, with felonious intent willfully, feloniously and of their malice aforethought, to kill and murder him...
And the grand jurors aforesaid, upon their oath foresaid, do further present that one Asperi Marchesi, one Joseph P. Macheca, one James Caruso, one Charles Matranga, one Rocco Geraci, one Charles Patorno, one Frank Romero and one John Caruso, before the said felony was committed in form aforesaid... did feloniously and maliciously incite, move, procure, aid, counsel, hire and command the said Peter Natali, the said Antonio Scaffedi, the said Antonio Bagnetto, the said Manuel Politz, the said Antonio Marchesi, the said Pietro Monastero, the said Bastian Incardona, the said Salvador Sinceri, and the said Loretto Comitz, one Charles Traina, and one Charles Poitza, the said felony in manner and form aforesaid...

Though the indictment contained charges against nineteen men, just nine of those were going on trial. District Attorney Charles H. Luzenberg handled the prosecution. The lead defense counsel was Lionel Adams.

Court adjourned at just after five o'clock in the afternoon. The start of testimony was scheduled for 10:30 the next morning, Saturday, February 28.

Through a period of twelve days, the court had summoned 1,221 prospective jurors. Of that number, 780 had been examined before the twelfth man of the panel could be placed.

A total of 557 men were prevented from jury service in the case for causes such as objecting to capital punishment, objecting to conviction based on circumstantial evidence, holding a fixed opinion in the case and exhibiting extreme prejudice against Sicilian-Americans. Physical disability excused ninety-five of those examined. The defense used 100 of its 108 peremptory challenges (twelve per defendant) against prospective jurors, while the prosecution used twenty-eight of its fifty-four peremptory challenges (half the total allowed to the defense).

The completed jury consisted of Jacob M. Seligman, jeweler, of 636 Carondelet Street; Solomon J. Mayer, real estate dealer, of 500 Franklin Street; John Berry Jr., flour company solicitor, of 137 Gravier Street; Walter D. Livaudais, Southern Pacific Railroad clerk, 209 1/2 Magazine Street; Henry L. Tronchet, cotton company clerk, of 411 Dauphine Street; William H. Leahy, machinist, of 439 Constance Street; Arnold F. Wille, grocer, of Lafayette and Franklin Streets; Edward J. Donegan, molder, of 299 1/2 St. Thomas Street; William Mackesy, bookkeeper, of 235 1/2 Julia Street; Charles Heyob, jewelry repairer, of 242 Royal Street; William Yochum, grocer, of Fourth and Dryades Streets; Charles Boesen, shoe company clerk, of 402 Customhouse Street.

The trial continued until Friday, March 13, when the jury returned with its verdicts. It found Bagnetto, Incardona, Macheca, the Marchesis and Matranga not guilty and could not reach a verdict on Politz, Scaffedi and Monastero. Suggestions that the jury had been bribed by agents employed by the defense were already being discussed in the community. The failure to convict anyone for the killing of the local police chief further incited the community.

Though not convicted, the nine case defendants could not be released until a related charge was dismissed. They were held overnight at Orleans Parish Prison, along with their untried indicted co-conspirators. Release of the acquitted defendants was expected to occur the next morning.

Overnight, however, political leaders hastily arranged a community mass meeting. On the morning of March 14, they stirred up a large crowd and swarmed the prison. A squad of gunmen penetrated the prison and murdered eleven of the prisoners held there, including six of the trial defendants.

Saturday, May 5, 2018

Grand jury defends killers

Says number involved in lynchings makes
indictment and prosecution impossible

On this date (May 5) in 1891...
A grand jury, tasked with examining the March 14 riotous attack on Orleans Parish Prison that left eleven inmates dead, issued a final report that not only refused to indict any involved in organizing and performing the prison break-in and killings but also rationalized and defended the acts of those who took the law into their own hands.

(Pittsburgh Dispatch coverage from May 6, 1891, shown at right.)

An execution squad cornered its helpless
targets in the prison yard and opened fire.

The prison raid occurred the morning after a trial jury failed to convict nine men accused of conspiring in the Mafia assassination of local Police Chief David C. Hennessey. Six defendants in that case were acquitted. A verdict could not be reached on the remaining three. The defendants all were held in the prison overnight, March 13-14, to await the dismissal of a related charge in another court.

Parkerson

The verdict was widely considered a miscarriage of justice achieved through jury bribery. A group of civic leaders let by William Stirling Parkerson gathered as a "Vigilance Committee" on the evening of March 13. They arranged for a mass meeting of local citizens the next day and published an inflammatory ad in local newspapers: "All good citizens are invited to attend a mass meeting on Saturday, March 14, at 10 o'clock a.m., at Clay Statue, to take steps to remedy the failure of justice in the Hennessy case. Come prepared for action." The ad was signed by the committee members.

According to reports, the organizers also selected an execution team of at least a dozen men, provided them with repeating rifles and instructed them on the list of prisoners who were to be killed.

On the morning of March 14, thousands of citizens turned out for the meeting, assembling around the statue of Henry Clay, then positioned in the center of Canal Street's intersection with St. Charles and Royal Streets. Parkerson and other Vigilance Committee leaders made fiery speeches and then organized a march to the Parish Prison, positioning execution team members at the front. When refused entry into the prison, a door was broken down and the execution team was sent inside. Parkerson's committee positioned guards at the broken door to ensure that the assembled mob was kept out of the prison.

Though deliberately planned and carefully executed, the killings at Orleans Parish Prison were classified as lynchings - casualties of irrational mob violence. The incident has since been regarded as the largest lynching in American history. Of the eleven men killed within the prison walls, just six had been among the defendants in the recent trial. The other five were accused Mafia conspirators who had not yet been brought into court. Most of the victims were immigrants from Italy, though a majority had achieved or taken steps toward U.S. citizenship.

As it probed the complete breakdown of local law and order, the grand jury heard testimony from hundreds of witnesses through a period of more than three weeks. Long before its findings were made public, there were indications that the panel would take no action against anyone involved in the March 14 killings. The only indictments it returned during its investigation were against six individuals accused of plotting in the selection and bribery of assassination trial jurors: private detective Dominick C. O'Malley, Thomas McCrystol, John Cooney, Bernard Claudi, Charles Granger and Fernand Armant.

O'Malley

Developments were closely followed around the globe. In advance of the grand jury report, Italy issued a treaty-based demand that the U.S. federal government take action to bring to justice the perpetrators of the March 14 violence and called for reparation payments. When Secretary of State James G. Blaine responded that the federal government had no authority to interfere in the Louisiana matter, Italy withdrew its ambassador to the United States, and newspapers wondered about the possibility of war.

The panel's final report, delivered to Judge Robert Hardin Marr on May 6, 1891, decided that the March 14 raid on the prison was "directly traceable to the miscarriage of justice as developed in the verdict rendered on March 13." It criticized abuses of the jury system by the Mafia secret organization and its associates in the New Orleans community.

The grand jury harshly criticized the combined interests of private detective O'Malley and defense attorney Lionel Adams, who represented the assassination trial defendants: "Such a combination between a detective and a prominent criminal lawyer is unheard of before in the civilized world, and when we contemplate its possibilities for evil we stand aghast."

It accused several on the assassination trial jury of selling their verdict: "...the moral conviction is forced upon us that some of the jurors impaneled to try the accused on the charge of assassination of the late chief of police were subject to a money influence to control their decision. Further than this, we may say it appears certain that at least three, if not more, of that jury were so unduly and unlawfully controlled."

The grand jury referred only in the most glowing terms to those who participated in the break-in at the prison and the killings of helpless inmates held there. It justified the March 14 violence as a correction of wrongdoing:

It is shown in the evidence that the gathering on Saturday morning, March 14, embraced several thousands of the first, best, and even the most law-abiding of the citizens of this city, assembled, as is the right of American citizens, to discuss in public meeting questions of grave import. We find a general sentiment among these witnesses and also in our intercourse with the people that the verdict as rendered by the jury was contrary to the law and the evidence and secured mainly through the designing and unscrupulous agents employed for the special purpose of defeating the ends of justice. At that meeting the determination was shown that the people would not submit to the surrender of their rights into the hands of midnight assassins and their powerful allies.

The grand jury dismissed as impossible the notion of bringing any charges against the March 14 killers, as it was a popular movement and prosecutors could not hope to bring an entire city to trial. The panel claimed to be unable to determine the identities of the vigilante leaders:

We have referred to the large number of citizens participating in this demonstration, estimated by judges at from 6000 to 8000, regarded as a spontaneous uprising of the people. The magnitude of this affair makes it a difficult task to fix the guilt upon any number of the participants - in fact, the act seemed to involve the entire people of the parish and City of New Orleans, so profuse is their sympathy and extended their connection with the affair. In view of these considerations, the thorough examination of the subject has failed to disclose the necessary facts to justify this grand jury in presenting indictments.

The grand jury included foreman W.H. Chaffe, Geo. H. Vennard, O. Carriere, D.R. Graham, David Stewart, T.W. Castleman, G.A. Hagsett, Jr., W.L. Saxon, E. Gauche, A.S. Ranlett, G.C. Lafaye, H. Haller, John H. Jackson, W.B. Leonard, P.J. Christian and Emile E. Hatry.

Coverage of the grand jury report and U.S.-Italy relations:

"The grand jury," New Orleans Daily Picayune, May 6, 1891, p. 1.
"The grand jury," New Orleans Times-Democrat, May 6, 1891, p. 1.
"Can't indict a whole city," New York Evening World, May 6, 1891, p. 1.
"Popular will pleaded," New York Sun, May 6, 1891, p. 1.
"That grand jury report," New York Times, May 7, 1891, p. 1.
"Lynching all right," Pittsburgh Dispatch, May 6, 1891, p. 1.
"No indictments," Pittsburgh Post, May 6, 1891, p. 1.
"No consolation for Italy," Rochester NY Democrat and Chronicle, May 6, 1891, p. 1.
"The diplomatic controversy...," Glasgow Scotland Herald, May 5, 1891, p. 6.
"Italy in a hurry," Marion OH Daily Star, April 1, 1891, p. 1.

More on this subject:

Deep Water:
Joseph P. Macheca and the Birth of the American Mafia
by Thomas Hunt and Martha Macheca Sheldon

Friday, March 13, 2015

None convicted in Mafia murder trial

Court Clerk Richard Screven reads the jury verdict
in Judge Joshua Baker's courtroom.

On this date (March 13) in 1891: The trial of nine men accused of the assassination of New Orleans Police Chief David Hennessy concludes without a conviction. Much of the city is enraged as the jury acquits six defendants and announces a deadlock on the remaining three.

Joseph P. Macheca, Charlie Matranga, Bastiano Incardona, Antonio Bagnetto, Antonio Marchesi and Asperi Marchesi are acquitted. A mistrial is declared for Manuel Polizzi, Antonio Scaffidi and Pietro Monastero.

The defendants, all widely suspected of membership in the Mafia criminal society, continue to be held at Orleans Parish Prison overnight on a legal technicality. Their release is expected the following day.

City political leaders hastily arrange for a morning gathering of New Orleans residents on Canal Street.