TRIALS: Similar to . . . Murder

• Share

"Similar to . . . Murder"

An icy wind whipped around the Hillsborough County Courthouse in the mill city of Manchester, N.H. (pop. 84,000). Inside, more than 100 New England men & women—Yankee, Irish, French Canadian, office manager, millworker, real-estate dealer—thought vaguely but anxiously about a question which men have discussed for centuries: Is there an eternal law that transcends men's best intentions and even men's law, and if there is, how are men to interpret it?

The 100-odd were members of a panel from which the court was trying to select twelve jurors (and an alternate) to try the case of 41-year-old Dr. Hermann Sander for the "mercy killing" last December of his cancer-ridden patient, Mrs. Abbie Borroto.

Before judge and lawyers came prospective juror Mrs. Corrine English, dark, thin Nashua housewife. Mrs. English didn't feel that "I could sit in the jury to give a verdict ... I don't think I believe in mercy killing."

"Mercy killing is an act similar to ..." murder," argued County Solicitor William H. Craig. "In other words," his colleague, State's Attorney General William L. Phinney, added, "simply because the adjective 'mercy' is inserted before 'killing' does not alter the situation. If a prospective juror took the witness stand and said, 'I have a prejudice and opinion against killing,' certainly that is not in and of itself a basis for disqualification." Judge and lawyers questioned Mrs. English further. "You say you do have some prejudice in your mind against the defendant?"

"Well, I have my own feelings, I suppose ... I don't know whether it would go against my religion or something." Mrs. English was excused from the panel by the court as having a disqualifying opinion.

Phinney tried to make it clear to "those jurors of the Catholic faith" that there is no inconsistency between church law and New Hampshire law on the matter of killing. Altogether, 70 veniremen were examined; Justice Harold E. Wescott excused 34 for cause; the defense used 17 peremptory challenges, the prosecution seven. From heavily Roman Catholic (60%) Manchester, justice finally settled on a jury which included nine Catholics.

The Morning of Dec. 4. A powdery snow began to fall outside. Under an old-fashioned tin ceiling, in the steam-heated courtroom, the twelve men and alternate sat down to consider the case. The trial had drawn the attention of half the world. On hand were photographers, newsmen, feature writers (among them, Novelists Fannie Hurst and John O'Hara), reporters from London and Paris newspapers. Dr. Sander, lean-faced, pale and expressionless, his busy and respected career interrupted, sat inside the courtroom rail with his wife, the mother of his three children.