Feb. 14, 2026
PRESIDENTS' DAY WEEKEND - "THE MADMAN WHO KILLED GARFIELD: CHARLES GUITEAU'S CIRCUS TRIAL & THE DOCTORS WHO REALLY DID IT"
Reid Carter covers the most bizarre assassination trial in American history. July 2, 1881: Charles Guiteau shot President James Garfield at a train station because God told him to — and because Garfield refused to make him ambassador to France. Garfield lingered for 80 agonizing days while doctors probed his wounds with unwashed hands, feeding him through his rectum when he couldn't eat. Guiteau's trial was pure chaos — he sang hymns, insulted the judge, called witnesses idiots, and argued the doctors killed Garfield, not him. Medically, he was right. The jury didn't care. Hanged June 30, 1882.
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WEBVTT
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Callaroga Shark Media. Good morning, I'm Red Carter. Saturday February fourteenth,
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twenty twenty six. Happy Valentine's Day, and welcome to Part
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two of our President's Day Assassination Trials series. Yesterday Lincoln,
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a coordinated conspiracy, a military tribunal, a woman hanged. Today,
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something completely different, an assassination so absurd, so bizarre, so
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medically catastrophic, that the killer had a legitimate argument he
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wasn't the one who actually killed the president. July twod
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eighteen eighty one, Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station, Washington, d C.
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President James Garfield is walking through the waiting room to
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catch a train to New Jersey. Been in office less
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than four months. A small, wiry man approaches from behind,
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pulls out a point four to four caliber British Bulldog revolver.
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Fires twice. One bullet grazes Garfield's arm. The second lodges
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somewhere in his back. The shooter doesn't run, doesn't resist,
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hands a note to a nearby police officer. The note
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is addressed to the White House. It reads, the President's
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tragic death was a sad necessity, but it will unite
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the Republican Party and save the Republic. I am a
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stalwart of the stalwarts. The shooter's name is Charles Julius Gattaux,
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thirty nine years old. Failed lawyer, failed evangelist, failed everything.
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He shot the President of the United States because God
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told him to and because Garfield wouldn't give him the
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ambassadorship to France. That's not the crazy part. The crazy
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part is what happened next. Garfield didn't die from the shooting.
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He lingered for eighty days while a parade of doctors
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shoved their unwashed fingers and unsterilized instruments into his wound,
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creating massive infections that killed him. His own medical team
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murdered him, and Gueitou's trial the most insane courtroom spectacle
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in American history. He sang, he danced, he recited poetry.
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He called the judge a dirty old man. He tried
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to sell autographed photos of himself from the defendant's table.
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He argued correctly that the doctors killed Garfield, not him.
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The jury didn't care. Getou hanged on June thirtieth, eighteen
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eighty two. I'm reed, Carter. This is celebrity trials today.
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The assassination of James Garfield. Charles Guetou's Carnival Trial and
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the Doctors Who Really Killed the Twentieth President, Part two
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of Our President's Day Assassination Trial series. To understand this case,
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you have to understand Charles Getau, and understanding Charles Guttau
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is like trying to understand a tornado wearing a top hat.
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Born September eighth, eighteen forty one in Freeport, Illinois. Mother
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died when he was seven. Father Luther Gueteau, was a
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religious fanatic obsessed with a utopian commune called the Oneda
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Community in upstate New York. John Humphrey Noyes founded it.
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Believed in complex marriage, essentially everyone was married to everyone,
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free love, communal property, perfectionism. At eighteen, Guitou joined the
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Oneda Community lasted five years. They called him Charles gid
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Out because nobody could stand him. Arrogant, delusional, terrible with women.
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Despite living in a free love commune, he left, tried
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to sue them for back wages, failed, and spent the
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rest of his life bouncing between schemes. Tried to start
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a newspaper, failed, practiced law, collected fees, and disappeared without
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doing the work essentially a con artist with a briefcase,
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tried evangelism, gave lectures claiming to have discovered the truth
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of the Second Coming. Audiences were empty. He once delivered
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a theology lecture to exactly zero people. He married a
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woman named Annie Bunn in eighteen sixty nine, beat her,
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locked her in a closet. She divorced him. He stiffed
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every hotel, boarding house, and landlord whoever trusted him, left
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a trail of unpaid bills from New York to Chicago
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to Washington. By eighteen eighty, Guetou had latched onto politics.
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The Republican Party was split between two factions, the stalwarts
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who supported the spoils system and wanted Ulysses Grant back
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for a third term, and the half breeds, who supported reform.
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James Garfield, a compromise candidate, won the eighteen eighty nomination.
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Gueitou believed he was responsible for Garfield's victory. He'd written
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a speech, a barely coherent rambling document titled Garfield Verses Hancock,
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printed copies, distributed them at Republican campaign events. Nobody read them,
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nobody cared, But in Guetou's mind, his speech had swung
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the election. After Garfield won, Guiteau expected a reward. He
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wanted the consulship to Paris. Ambassador to France, showed up
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at the White House repeatedly wrote letters to Garfield and
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Secretary of State James Blaine. I should like the consulship
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to Paris as I am familiar with the French language
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and the French people. He spoke no French. Gueteau was
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turned away again and again. Blaine finally exploded at him,
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never speak to me again on the Paris consulship as
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long as you live. Security was told to stop letting
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him in. That rejection triggered what Guetau later described as
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divine revelation. God told him to remove the president, not
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kill remove. Guiteau made the distinction he wasn't a murderer,
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he was an instrument of God's will. Garfield's death would
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unite the Republican Party. Vice President Chester Arthur, a stalwart,
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would take over and reward loyal party men. The Republic
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would be saved. Guetou borrowed fifteen dollars and bought a
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British bulldog Revolver. Chose the ivory handled version over the
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wooden handled one because he thought it would look better
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in a museum someday practiced. Shooting on the banks of
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the Potomac was a terrible shot. He stalked Garfield for weeks,
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followed him to church, to the train station. Once had
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a clear shot, but didn't take it because Missus Garfield
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was with her husband and she looked frail. Gueitou didn't
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want to upset the first lady. July second, eighteen eighty one,
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Garfield was heading to Williams College for his class reunion,
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then to a vacation in New Jersey. Walked through the
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Baltimore and Potomac Railroad station with Secretary of State Blaine
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no Secret Service protection that wouldn't become standard until after
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McKinley's assassination twenty years later. Gueitou stepped behind the president,
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fired twice from claree. The first bullet grazed Garfield's right arm,
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the second entered his back to the right of his spine.
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Garfield collapsed. My god, what is this, he said, before
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losing consciousness. Gueteau was immediately seized by a police officer,
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handed over his note explaining the assassination, said, calmly, I
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am a stalwart of the stalwarts. Arthur is now president,
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except Arthur wasn't president because Garfield wasn't dead. Not yet.
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Here's where this story becomes a medical horror show. The
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bullet was lodged somewhere in Garfield's torso nobody knew exactly
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where there were no X rays. Wilhelm Runkin wouldn't discover
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them until eighteen ninety five, so the doctors went looking
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with their fingers. Doctor doctor Willard Bliss, yes his first
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name was doctor. His parents apparently had a sense of humor,
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took charge of Garfield's care. Over the next eighty days.
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At least sixteen physicians probed the wound with unwashed hands
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and unsterilized instruments, repeatedly aggressively. Joseph Lister had published his
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groundbreaking work on antiseptic surgery in eighteen sixty seven. Fourteen
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years earlier. Sterile technique was becoming standard in Europe, but
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most American doctors dismissed it, called it unnecessary, washed their
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hands when they felt like it, which was almost never.
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The bullet had fractured Garfield's eleventh rib and lodged behind
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his pancreas, about ten inches from the entry wound. It
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wasn't in a fatal location. Modern trauma surgeons say Garfield's
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wound was survivable. The bullet missed his spine, missed major arteries,
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missed vital organs. With basic antiseptic care, he probably would
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have lived. Instead, the doctors turned a survivable gunshot wound
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into a death sentence. They probed the wound track with
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bare fingers, introducing bacteria. They stuck unsterilized instruments deep into
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his body. They widened the wound channel from three and
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a half inches to twenty inches. Searching for the bullet
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created secondary infection tracks that spread sepsis throughout his body.
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Alexander Graham Bell, the telephone inventor, brought a primitive metal
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detector to the White House to try to locate the bullet.
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The device worked in testing, but when Bell used it
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on Garfield, it gave confusing readings, probably because Garfield was
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lying on a bed with metal coil springs and nobody
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thought to check. By August, massive infections had set in.
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Abscesses formed throughout Garfield's body, blood poisoning. His weight dropped
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from two hundred ten pounds to one hundred thirty. He
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couldn't eat The doctors fed him rectally beef broth, egg, yolks,
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whiskey through enemas. This was considered advanced medicine. September sixth
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Garfield was moved to a cottage in Elberon, New Jersey.
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On the shore. They hoped sea air would help. Railroad
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workers laid new tracks overnight so his train could deliver
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him directly to the cottage door. September nineteenth, eighteen eighty one,
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eighty days after the shooting, James Garfield died at ten
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thirty five pm. He was forty nine years old. Cause
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of death sepsis, bronchial pneumonia, and a ruptured splenic artery,
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all caused by the infections introduced by his doctor's unsterile probing.
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Autopsy confirmed what modern medicine makes obvious. The bullet itself
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was harmless where it sat. The doctors killed him. Every probe,
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every unwashed finger, every contaminated instrument created new pathways for infection.
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They tortured a dying man for eighty days and called
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it treatment. Charles Guiteau was thrilled, not because Garfield was dead,
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but because the autopsy proved his legal theory. The doctors
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killed Garfield. I just shot him. We'll be right back
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with the trial of Charles Guetou the most bizarre courtroom
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spectacle in American history. He sang hymns, insulted the judge,
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sold autographed photos from the defense table, and had the
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audacity to argue that God and bad doctors were the
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real killers. November fourteenth, eighteen eighty one, the trial of
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Charles Getau began in the Criminal Court of the District
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of Columbia. Judge Walter Cox presiding. The courtroom was packed.
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Tickets to attend were the hottest commodity in Washington. Guetau's
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defense was twofold. First insanity, he was acting under divine command.
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God told him to remove the president. He couldn't disobey God.
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Therefore he lacked criminal responsibility. Second, the doctors killed Garfield,
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not him. The bullet wound was survivable. The infections caused
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by incompetent medical treatment were the actual cause of death.
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Even if Guetou pulled the trigger, the chain of causation
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was broken by medical malpractice. That second argument was medically sound. Legally,
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it didn't matter. Under the law. You're responsible for the
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natural consequences of your criminal act. If you shoot someone
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and doctors make it worse, that's still your bullet. That
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started the chain of events, but Guetou pushed the argument anyway.
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His brother in law, George Scoville, served as his attorney.
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Gueteau immediately started undermining him, interrupted, constantly objected to Scoville's strategy,
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told the court his own lawyer was incompetent. At one point,
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Guetou fired Scouville and tried to represent himself. The judge
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wouldn't allow it. The trial lasted seventy two days, and
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Charles Guittoux turned every single one of them into a performance.
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He addressed the jury directly against all rules, called prosecution witnesses, liars,
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called the judge biased, called the prosecutor a low, dirty,
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wicked man, recited poetry he'd written, sang John Brown's body
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in the courtroom, announced he planned to run for president
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in eighteen eighty four and that his trial was excellent publicity.
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He dictated an autobiography from the defense table, shouting passages
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allowed for reporters to transcribe, sold autographed photographs through the mail.
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Received hundreds of fan letters, some containing money, some containing
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death threats, some containing marriage proposals, When the prosecution presented
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evidence of his stalking Garfield, Gutou interrupted, that is not stalking,
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that is divine inspiration. When witnesses described his erratic behavior,
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he shouted that witness is a liar and an idiot.
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He solicited a defense fund from the public, published an
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open letter in newspapers asking wealthy citizens to contribute to
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his legal expenses. Argued that since he'd elevated Chester Arthur
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to the presidency, the Republican Party owed him legal representation.
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The prosecution, led by District Attorney George Corkill and assisted
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by Judge John Porter, presented a straightforward case. Getou planned
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the assassination, bought the gun, stalked the president, shot him twice,
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admitted it was proud of it. He was not insane.
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He was self aggrandizing, delusional, and desperate for attention. But
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he knew what he was doing and knew it was wrong.
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Prosecution experts testified that Getou was not legally insane. He
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understood the nature of his act, He understood it was
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against the law. He planned it carefully. He tried to
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avoid detection during the stalking phase. He prepared his note
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to the White House in advance he chose the ivory
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handled gun for esthetic reasons, all evervidence of a calculating mind.
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Defense experts disagreed. Doctor Edward Spitzka, one of America's leading neurologists,
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examined Gueitou and concluded he was insane. Cited family history,
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Guetau's father and several relatives showed signs of mental illness.
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Cited Guiteau's lifelong pattern of grandiose delusions, inability to function
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in society, and genuine belief in divine communication. But Guiteaux
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undermined his own insanity defense at every turn. When his
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attorneys argued he was mentally ill, he'd stand up and declare,
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I am not insane. I am a patriot. God told
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me to do this, and I did it. He wanted
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to be seen as a political hero, not a lunatic.
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The public hated him. Two separate assassination attempts were made
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on Guitau during the trial. On November nineteenth, a horse
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drawn carriage pulled alongside the prisoner transport wagon and a
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man fired a shotgun at Guetou, missing him. On the
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way to court one morning, a bailiff shot at him.
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Getou was grazed but not seriously injured. He responded to
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the shooting by filing a lawsuit against the District of
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Columbia for failing to protect him. Filed it from the
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defendant's table. During his own murder trial January twenty fifth,
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eighteen eighty two, closing arguments, Gettou insisted on addressing the
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jury himself. Delivered a rambling hour long speech, alternated between
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claiming insanity and claiming divine inspiration. Told the jury that
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convicting him would be the greatest judicial crime in American history.
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Said he'd done more for the Republican Party than any
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man alive. Said God would punish any juror who voted guilty.
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The jury deliberated for one hour and five minutes. Guilty,
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Guetou screamed at the jury, you are all low consummate jackasses.
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My blood will be on your heads. Judge Cock sentenced
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him to death by hanging. Getou told the j judge
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he'd be sorry, said God would avenge him, said he'd
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be vindicated by history. June thirtieth, eighteen eighty two, Gueteaux
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was hanged at the District of Columbia jail. Before the
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