postmaster, justice of the peace, state’s at- torney, service in the Vermont House and Senate, on the Council of Censors, and as probate judge.36
Sargeant, twenty-six years
old at the time, was second chair to Rich- ard Skinner and also involved in the effort to commute the sentences of the Boorns before the legislature.37
At age eighty, hav-
ing told the story many times before over the years, Sargeant wrote the first compre- hensive account of the trial, based on per- sonal experience. His is the most authorita- tive version, and yet it also reflects his belief that the Court had failed to follow the law in addressing the evidentiary issues at the trial. He was still a defense counsel for the Boorns. Sargeant criticized the Court for its “dis-
regard of the old English Law that there should be no conviction for murder until the body of the murdered person was found, or proof of its destruction beyond a doubt … ”38
parition one night in his jail cell, “some- thing that had come into the window and was on the bed behind him.”45
Jesse’s cell-
mate Silas Merrill, confined for forgery, re- lated Jesse’s confession to authorities, re- ceiving favorable treatment for his help with the prosecution.46
Hearing of Jesse’s
confession, Stephen was at first very angry, but subsequently acknowledged that Jes- se had told the truth, and then, in a frenzy, Stephen wrote out the confession himself. John Spargo, having spoken with older law- yers who seemed to know more than had been written about the trial, believed Rich- ard Skinner had dictated the confession. Comparing the wording of the letter to the letter of the Vermont law on manslaughter, it is possible to see a defter hand at work than Stephen Boorn’s.47
Leonard Sargeant
He also faulted the admission of the con- fessions. Sargeant was still angry about the trial. The return of Colvin was not enough; he was compelled to fault the Court. On the confessions, he wrote, “Later rulings would probably have excluded the confessions from the case on” the ground that they were influenced by fear.39 Sargeant’s book directly inspired Willkie Collins, who published his novella The Dead Alive in 1874.40
Collins renamed the princi-
pals, but retained most of the facts evinced at the trial. As an English writer (and Eng- lish hero-narrative, visiting relatives in rural America) saw it, a peculiarly American weak- ness was at work here. “Public opinion de- clares itself in America without the slight- est reserve, or the slightest care for circum- stances. Public opinion declared on this oc- casion that the lost man was the victim of foul play, and held one or both of the broth- ers Meadowcroft responsible for his disap- pearance.”41
The narrator, an English barris-
ter on a vacation to restore his health from overwork, could not resist commenting on the illegality of the proceedings. As part of the defense, he reported, “We appealed to the old English law, that there should be no conviction for murder until the body of the murdered person was found, or proof of its destruction obtained beyond a doubt.”42 Collins then repeated what Sargeant wrote, that the confessions should not have been produced in evidence, as “they had been extorted by terror, or by undue influence,” and noted the discrepancies between the confessions. Collins has the confessions ad- mitted into evidence over the objections of defense counsel.43
Sargeant made the same
mistake, failing to note that Skinner had of- fered Stephen’s confession after one of the witnesses had alluded to it.44 The confessions, and the reporting of them, were problematic. The first confes- sion was Jesse’s, made after he saw an ap-
12 THE VERMONT BAR JOURNAL • SUMMER 2012
explained the confessions “were probably made and framed for the purpose of mak- ing the crime manslaughter or justifiable homicide instead of premeditated murder, and seem to have been incited by fear on the one hand, men of influence repeatedly telling them that the evidence was strong enough to convict them, and hope on the other.”48 Sargeant, having given his rendition of the trial and its aftermath, followed Leon- ard Deming’s practice, describing other cases of wrongful conviction, from English and American sources, where an innocent defendant was executed, only later to dis- cover the true perpetrator, usually through deathbed confessions.49
For Sargeant, the
real criminal in Manchester in 1819 was the public hysteria that led to the prosecution, trial, and terrible near-tragedy.50
But he also
held the Court responsible.51 Sherman Moulton’s Defense
In 1937, the Vermont Historical Society published The Boorn Mystery, written by Sherman Moulton, Chief Justice of the Ver- mont Supreme Court, and subtitled, “An Episode from the Judicial Annals of Ver- mont.”52
His account of the incidents of the
arrest, trial, and the return of Colvin in the Boorn brothers case was written as a rebut- tal to the accusations made against the Ver- mont Supreme Court over the preceding 128 years. He was Chief Justice. It was his duty to defend the Court.53
Moulton started with a simple truth: “[I]t always seems to be the proper thing to crit- icize the court when anything goes amiss, upon the ground that everyone connected with it should have been omniscient.”54
He
reminded his readers that in 1819 Vermont law allowed the jury to decide both the facts and the law, treating the charge by the tri- al judge as only a recommendation from a learned authority. While judge’s instruc- tions were still fodder for appeals of civil and criminal cases—while the court could
www.vtbar.org
Ruminations: The Trials of Jesse and Stephen Boorn
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