State

Reminiscences of Crime Mr. Lawrence represented the last man who was hanged anil the first man who was electrocuted in this state, lie also tells of some other interesting facts concerning punishment for crime. I AM a veritable ancient of days, am in the sere and yellow leaf, and all that sort of thing, for ’way back in 1893 1 heard the first law lecture ever delivered at Wake Forest College by Dr. Needham Y. Gulley, the venerable and beloved Dean of Law at that institution for more than forty years, during which more than one-third of all the attor¬ neys practicing at the Carolina Bar were under his tutelage. Now, at eighty -seven, he still teaches on occa¬ sion and is yet chairman of the Wake County Board of Education. In 1S9S the method of law exami¬ nation was changed from oral to written, ami 1 was of the first class to take the written test. Chief Jus¬ tice Clark had prepared a list of six tv-six question, but as half of them could be answered with a simple yes or no, you were obliged to get as much as fifty by the law of general aver¬ ages, and this may serve to explain how I managed to secure my license. Other Experiences John D. Bellamy, whose recent death removed the Dean of our Car¬ olina Bar, managed to do much bet¬ ter, as he was not required to an¬ swer so many as sixty-six legal posers. In the early seventies of the last century, he was sick at the time for the regular examination, so he was granted a special test by Chief Jus¬ tice Pearson. When the young appli¬ cant appeared before the venerable Chief Justice, his honor asked him just one question, and then turned to the clerk and instructed the issuance of his license! If you do not believe all this has been changed, look at the next list of questions prepared by the examining committee headed by former Supreme Court Justice Ly- curgus Bayner Varscr and I will wager an even million dollars (if I can borrow so much) that not ten per cent of the attorneys now prac¬ ticing could pass the present exacting examinations. I had a long and varied experience at the Bar on both sides of the docket, for although I greatly dis¬ liked criminal practice, T was living By R. C. LAWRENCE in a country town and had to take the "run of the mill” and all such practice as came my way. It is some¬ times said that physicians bury their mistakes, while lawyers hang theirs, but although I appeared for the de¬ fense in more than a hundred capi¬ tal cases, in some mysterious way all my clients managed to escape a cap¬ ital conviction — all save one. Alas and alack that such a perfect record should have been marred ! And to add to my humiliation, my man was the Iasi man ever hanged within our State. The defendant's name was Spivey, the crime was committed in Bladen, and was atrocious in its nature. The defendant and his father-in-law had a dispute over a small tract of land, and one dark night the defendant crept stealthily under the house occu¬ pied by his father-in-law, then mak¬ ing such a noise as lie knew would bring the old man out. The aged man came out with a kerosene lamp and was peering under the house to ascertain the cause of the noise when the defendant blazed away at him with a double-barrelled shot gun, killing him instantly. Then the de¬ fendant tied, leaving behind him an abundance of incriminating evidence. Plea of Insanity I was of counsel for the defense, and soon found that proof of the commission of the crime by the de¬ fendant was clear and conclusive. I knew my only chance rested in a plea of insanity, and by hook or crook I managed to rake up some evidence tending to show that two or three of the cousins of the defendant had been afflicted with dementia praecox— if you will pardon a technical term which I got from the Doctors. But the plea did not avail me. The jury with but little delay returned a ver¬ dict of guilty, and the solemn words of the presiding Judge then intoned the fearful words in the dire lan¬ guage then employed, closing with the doom : “And may God have mercy on your soul.” I onlv hope He did! A Good Samaritan now appeared, for shortly after the conviction a Catholic priest appeared in my office and made inquiry concerning the status of the case. I told him I in¬ tended perfecting an appeal, al¬ though the defendant had no funds wherewith to compensate me. The priest then adjured me to spare no effort in behalf of the condemned man, as his church would assume full responsibility for the payment of all my charges. Now Spivey was not a Catholic, which but adds to the lustre of this great act in the service of humanity. Although I did exert every effort, the judgment of the court below was duly affirmed, and notwithstanding 1 then laid around the office of the Governor almost as long as Grant laid around Petersburg, making every effort to secure a commutation, the Governor refused to interfere. A great host of people thronged the streets of Elizabethtown when the day of execution arrived, and included in the crowd was the wife of the defendant. She should have stayed away even if the condemned man had been convicted of killing her father. Now can you recall the first woman ever hanged in America? It was Mrs. Surratt, who was convicted by a military court-martial of complic¬ ity in the assassination of President Lincoln. Four of the eleven mem¬ bers of the court recommended clemency in her case, but stern Sec¬ retary of War Stanton suppressed this recommendation, and in iguo- rance that such recommendation had been made, Carolina’s President An¬ drew Johnson allowed the execution to take place. Short Time Between Crimes The next capital case with which 1 was associated involved the elec¬ tric chair, and it so chanced that whereas I had represented the de¬ fendant in the case of the last man hanged, I prosecuted the first man