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Kansas Charley goes on trial with a defense attorney with no prior murder case experience. The prosecution attorney is a slick character backed by the cattle barons.
On December 7, 1890, icy winds were blowing across the Wyoming prairie. Also on that day sixteen-year-old Kansas Charley was escorted from his jail cell in the county jail. He, and his escort, made the short walk to the Laramie County Courthouse. There, Charley Miller, also known as Kansas Charley, was to stand trial for the murders of Waldo Emerson and Ross Fishbaugh. Free Room and Board Behind BarsAlthough Charley had languished some two months in the county jail, receiving regular meals finally, he was still slight of stature. Charley was small for his age, perhaps a result of the poverty he'd known. Premeditation and Malice Beyond DoubtIn the courtroom Charley took his seat next to the man who was to defend him, Attorney Frank Darwin Taggart. Charlie's attorney had advised the boy to plead not guilty, in spite of the fact that he had already admitted to the crime. This would mean that the prosecution, in order to ask for the most severe verdict, murder in the first degree, would have to prove every point in the indictment, namely that Charles Miller had killed his victims with "premeditation and malice, deliberately and willfully, beyond reasonable doubt." Evidence Irrelevant and IncompetentAs the trial progressed, Prosecutor Stoll called witness after witness. With each witness for the prosecution defense attorney Taggart persisted and continued to confound each person's statements. With each piece of material evidence submitted Taggart also persistently objected to each, declaring that each were "either irrelevant, incompetent, or both." Both attorneys and the judge well knew that these constant objections were a means of laying the groundwork for a later appeal. Throughout the trial Frank Taggart perhaps did the best that he could to defend Kansas Charley but Charley had no way of knowing "that his lawyer was a greenhorn." Others in Cheyenne knew this fact of course. And perhaps it was just as well that Charley did not know that the man that had been appointed to defend him had "no experience in capital cases." Kansas Charley Goes on Trial: Defense Attorney Still a Greenhorn, continues with Kansas Charley Get a Verbal Stab: Newspaperman Swears Unlikely Words. Previous: Cattlemen Condemn Kansas Charley: Boy Murderer Makes Fine Example.
The copyright of the article Kansas Charley Goes on Trial in American History is owned by Mary Trotter Kion. Permission to republish Kansas Charley Goes on Trial in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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