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07.21.2004
1892. Though jury clears Lizzie Borden, her reputation remains clouded
All eyes of the newspaper world focused on New Bedford in June 1893, as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts prepared to try Lizzie Borden for murder -- and newspapermen prepared to bring the trial of the century to the world.
"Newspaper representatives are here in force, and each train adds to the number," The Providence Daily Journal reported on the morning of June 5, the day jury selection would begin.
"Tomorrow morning the curtain ascends on the most momentous chapter of the celebrated Borden murder mystery," The Journal said. "About it all there is the atmosphere of suppressed excitement -- the longing for the opening of the act, and the ending of the suspense."
But, where to put all the reporters? How to carry their news to readers throughout the world?
Space in the courtroom next to the jury box was set aside for reporters. Wooden planks were installed as makeshift desks. That made space for 25 reporters, which, The Journal reported, was "promptly monopolized by the Bristol county and Boston papers." That left nowhere for The Journal's reporters, who appealed to court officials.
A few more seats were put inside the dock, which meant The Journal's reporters sat next to Lizzie Borden and her lawyers during the trial.
Newspaper artists, whose drawings would illustrate the trial coverage in an age before photographs could easily be reproduced in print, also descended on the Whaling City, sketching "everything immovable and some things movable."
The old carriage houses behind the courthouse were converted into telegraph shacks, sprouting heavy bundles of wire that would transmit coded stories from the court to newspaper offices back in Providence and around the world.
Throughout much of the trial, The Journal's coverage flowed over more than a page each day. It included head-and-shoulder sketches of participants and courtroom scenes. The reporting resembled a transcript of the trial, with witnesses' testimonies noted in the order the witnesses appeared.
On June 12, The Journal scooped the competition and printed a transcript of Lizzie's testimony given at an inquest Aug. 9 to 11, 1892, several days after her father and stepmother had been murdered. Lizzie had given several contradictory accounts of her whereabouts at the times of the murders. It was the closest thing to a smoking gun prosecutors would have.
The Journal published the damning transcript, taken from the official court stenographer's notes, while Lizzie's trial was in progress, before the judge decided whether to allow it as evidence.
But the jury, which was sequestered in a local hotel, would never hear Lizzie's statements.
On the same day The Journal published them, the judge ruled them inadmissible. The judge said that, because Lizzie was in custody when she testified at the inquest, her statements could not be considered voluntary.
The Journal noted this as a key turning point of the case: "All previous dramatic scenes of the trial faded into insignificance as the import of the opinion was realized, as the words fell clear and distinct from the lips of the dignified Justice."
The Journal's two-column headline on June 21 was stunning, not only because of what it said but because, in that day, headlines were limited to a single column; only advertisements could be wider.
The Journal proclaimed: "NOT GUILTY."
The Journal forecast a gloomy future for Lizzie Borden's reputation:
"No one has any desire to see Miss Borden proved guilty; every one instinctively shrinks from a conclusion so horrible. But there is no use in shutting our eyes to the fact that she leaves the court room at New Bedford still under a grave cloud of suspicion."
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