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

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.

121 years ago: None convicted

121 years ago today: The trial of nine men accused of the assassination of New Orleans Police Chief David Hennessy concludes March 13, 1891, without a conviction. Much of the city is enraged as the jury acquits six defendants - Joseph P. Macheca, Charlie Matranga, Bastiano Incardona, Antonio Bagnetto, Antonio Marchesi and Asperi Marchesi - and announces a deadlock on the remaining three - Manuel Polizzi, Antonio Scaffidi and Pietro Monastero.
The defendants, all widely suspected of membership in the Mafia criminal society, are 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.

The attack on Police Chief Hennessy

On this date (October 15) in 1890, New Orleans Police Chief David Hennessy was shot and mortally wounded a short distance from his home. He succumbed to his wounds the following morning.

Chief Hennessy

Hennessy (left) attended a meeting of the Police Commission during the evening of October 15. The meeting broke up at about nine o'clock. Hennessy was driven back to police headquarters at the southwest corner of Common (Tulane Avenue) and Basin Streets. Captain William O'Connor of the private Boylan Protection Agency met him there and was to escort the police chief home. Hennessy had received a number of death threats from the local Mafia, and the city fathers hired the Boylan agency to keep him safe.

Though Hennessy had a reputation for punctuality (he lived with his widowed mother and reportedly tried not to give her reason for worry), the chief did not immediately head home. Instead, he and O'Connor chatted at police headquarters for more than an hour. They left the building a few minutes after eleven.

While Basin Street was the most direct route between Hennessy's office and his home on Girod Street, heavy rains of earlier in the day reportedly had made the road unpassable. Hennessy and O'Connor took a significantly lengthier route, riverward on Common Street and then up Rampart Street to the intersection with Poydras Street. At that corner, the two men stopped into Dominick Virget's Oyster Saloon for a late snack. A teetotaller, Hennessy had a glass of milk with his plate of oysters.

At eleven-thirty, the men stepped out of Virget's and continued up Rampart Street. They paused in front of the McDonough schoolhouse at the corner of Rampart and Girod, about one and half city squares from Hennessy's home. O'Connor said goodbye to Hennessy at that point, though he had been assigned to see the chief all the way home. O'Connor crossed the intersection diagonally to his left - his intended destination is unknown - while Hennessy turned right on Girod.

The chief took only a few strides and then halted as a young man darted out of a Girod Street doorway and ran toward Basin Street whistling loudly. The youth turned right onto Basin and disappeared around the side of Mrs. Ehrwald's second-hand store.

Girod Street shed roof.

Hennessy managed just a few steps more. As he reached the front of the residence at No. 269 Girod Street, shotgun pellets tore into him from his left. The initial blast, originating from the darkness under a shed roof on the opposite site of Girod (right), shredded his umbrella, disabled his left hand and knocked him backward. Hennessy instinctively drew his ivory-handled Colt 45 revolver. Another blast of shotgun pellets ripped through his slacks and shattered his right knee. On his way to the ground, the chief was struck by pellets in the chest and abdomen and then in the face and neck. Hennessy fired his revolver into the darkness across the street as he struggled to stand up.

Two shadowy figures stepped into Girod Street. Illuminated by a streetlamp, they advanced toward the fallen police chief. They fired large-caliber slugs into Hennessy's midsection and then ran off.

Hennessy miraculously managed to rise to his feet. He stumbled a few yards to the corner of Basin Street and dragged his disabled leg a few more paces down Basin. He collapsed onto the front steps of No. 189 Basin Street. Captain O'Connor, at most only a single square away when the gunfire erupted, reached the chief's side far too late to fulfill his function as bodyguard.

"They gave it to me," Hennessy mumbled, "and I gave it back the best I could." O'Connor asked if the chief could identify his attackers. Hennessy said, "Dagoes."

Read Deep Water: Joseph P. Macheca and the Birth of the American Mafia, 2d edition.

120 years ago: Hennessy assassination

October 15, 1890: New Orleans Police Chief David Hennessy was shot and mortally wounded near his Girod Street home. Hennessy's assassination sparked a wave of anti-Mafia sentiment that led to the murders of Crescent City businessman J.P. Macheca and ten other men held at Orleans Parish Prison.