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poore, pitmann, and peterson brothers, that is.
okay, i was up after midnight (so so bad) just going through Poore's and trying to demarcate (with posties) the division of days.
poore's is a nightmare! the manuscript is completely random and disorganized. was this guy on the pipe or what?
on the positive side:
Poppet calls detective McPhail to the stand. why??? he even admits, hey, i know this isn't legal, but cut me some slack (for which Bingham tears him a new one). It's no clearer to me (and even more confounding) why Poppet did this. what was he hoping to get from McPhail or George's confession? the only thing I can think of is that when he objected to their bringing McPhail in for the prosecution, they overruled his objection and so he figured it was open season. i have no clue. it's inconceivable to me that he would want to read George's confession to the court ~ it incriminates everybody. whose side are ya on, Poppet?
and what in the world is all that stuff about Norton? Poppet spends half his time trying to impeach Norton as a witness (to the point that the commission gets totally fed up about it and Norton submits a very nasty letter to the papers expressing his disgust at being harrassed and insinuated a liar). Norton's testimony is damning, but no more so than Looey's or several others. and in the midst of trying to knock Norton's credibility to kingdom come, Poppet manages to tick off the other counsel to boot! (Poppet twice shifts the blame to one of the other accused ~ it seems unintentional, but it causes some crabbiness. you know it's bad when counsel is objecting to counsel).
these are things that aren't as evident in the other two copies of the transcript and they have me rethinking Poppet a bit.
also, according to Poore, Poppet requested Hanty arrest his delinquent witnesses and the court said: no you have to wait until friday before we'll serve warrants. the court then served the warrants on saturday after the witnesses still failed to show (and then they tell him that they won't hold session to wait any longer ~ sheesh).
overall, Poppet comes off less confident in this version, more like he's totally grasping, and Poore prints (presumably verbatim), the sniping between him and Bingham (and Bingham is nasty as all get out). it's especially interesting that in Poppet's memoir he makes a point of saying that Holt and Burnett were polite at least, but that Bingham was rude and awful. it's not like Poppet to slam people (even the worst he ever says about Czar NastyOwlFace is always tempered with: but Lincoln approved of him, so evidently he was a necessary evil). about Binghman, though, he has nothing good to say.
not sure what the source of contention is there. not sure if the two had a history.
anyway, so now i can say i've seen Poore's transcript and i'm glad i did because it's provided some much-needed objectivity about Poppet's temperament during the proceedings. I have to remind myself that he wrote his memoirs 40 years after the fact and that at the time he was 28 years old, had just passed the bar, and was basically working what had to be the crappiest job for a lawyer in all of washington, and had been assigned a case which it's evident (by his own words) that he didn't want to undertake in the first place ~ on top of which he had clients who were pretty obviously guilty, had just about admitted as much, and were unwilling or incapable of giving him any information to help themselves.
one of the historians somewhere mentioned that it's a wonder Poppet bothered trying to mount any kind of defense at all.
no. lie.
: o p
~ crabby bingham, self-absorbed holt, and squirrely burnett ~
all three prosecutors were so bent on convicting jefferson davis, et al.
in absentia at this trial, that the particulars of the accused before them
seemed to be treated as almost inconsequential.
okay, i was up after midnight (so so bad) just going through Poore's and trying to demarcate (with posties) the division of days.
poore's is a nightmare! the manuscript is completely random and disorganized. was this guy on the pipe or what?
on the positive side:
the context and wording of the various objections and rulings on the objections is much more explicit. in both Peterson and Pitmann, they kinda summarize what the deal is. here the arguments are transcibed (sometimes at quite some length ~ boy, that ewing can talk!)on the negative side:
the content is very similar to the Peterson copy, but the variations in word choices
are interesting ~ enough to make you wonder whose copy is more faithful. the subject matter isn't affected, but there are small nuances throughout worth mining.
after reading Poppet's cross-examinations in Poore's copy, two things strike me: Poppet comes off much much more aggressive in this transcript than any others ~ in fact, several times the president of the commission tells him to let the witness answer a question in their own way when Poppet insists on trying to strangle a yes or no out them. i did not expect this at all. though it's hard to ascertain tone from the page, my impression on this read is that Poppet's a great deal less level-headed and much more frustrated in this version than any of the others.
it's incomplete!!! holy mackeral! poore published the first three volumes and the last installment didn't sell so well, so i guess they didn't bother publishing the testimony and closing arguments from June 14-25th.[and there followed the gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair].
this is crazy-making for me because all the important stuff in the case i'm looking at happens in the last week of the trial! foo! foo! foo! i really desperately wanted to see Poore's take on the June 14th testimony of the doctors especially, etc.
Poppet calls detective McPhail to the stand. why??? he even admits, hey, i know this isn't legal, but cut me some slack (for which Bingham tears him a new one). It's no clearer to me (and even more confounding) why Poppet did this. what was he hoping to get from McPhail or George's confession? the only thing I can think of is that when he objected to their bringing McPhail in for the prosecution, they overruled his objection and so he figured it was open season. i have no clue. it's inconceivable to me that he would want to read George's confession to the court ~ it incriminates everybody. whose side are ya on, Poppet?
and what in the world is all that stuff about Norton? Poppet spends half his time trying to impeach Norton as a witness (to the point that the commission gets totally fed up about it and Norton submits a very nasty letter to the papers expressing his disgust at being harrassed and insinuated a liar). Norton's testimony is damning, but no more so than Looey's or several others. and in the midst of trying to knock Norton's credibility to kingdom come, Poppet manages to tick off the other counsel to boot! (Poppet twice shifts the blame to one of the other accused ~ it seems unintentional, but it causes some crabbiness. you know it's bad when counsel is objecting to counsel).
these are things that aren't as evident in the other two copies of the transcript and they have me rethinking Poppet a bit.
also, according to Poore, Poppet requested Hanty arrest his delinquent witnesses and the court said: no you have to wait until friday before we'll serve warrants. the court then served the warrants on saturday after the witnesses still failed to show (and then they tell him that they won't hold session to wait any longer ~ sheesh).
overall, Poppet comes off less confident in this version, more like he's totally grasping, and Poore prints (presumably verbatim), the sniping between him and Bingham (and Bingham is nasty as all get out). it's especially interesting that in Poppet's memoir he makes a point of saying that Holt and Burnett were polite at least, but that Bingham was rude and awful. it's not like Poppet to slam people (even the worst he ever says about Czar NastyOwlFace is always tempered with: but Lincoln approved of him, so evidently he was a necessary evil). about Binghman, though, he has nothing good to say.
not sure what the source of contention is there. not sure if the two had a history.
anyway, so now i can say i've seen Poore's transcript and i'm glad i did because it's provided some much-needed objectivity about Poppet's temperament during the proceedings. I have to remind myself that he wrote his memoirs 40 years after the fact and that at the time he was 28 years old, had just passed the bar, and was basically working what had to be the crappiest job for a lawyer in all of washington, and had been assigned a case which it's evident (by his own words) that he didn't want to undertake in the first place ~ on top of which he had clients who were pretty obviously guilty, had just about admitted as much, and were unwilling or incapable of giving him any information to help themselves.
one of the historians somewhere mentioned that it's a wonder Poppet bothered trying to mount any kind of defense at all.
no. lie.
: o p
~ crabby bingham, self-absorbed holt, and squirrely burnett ~
all three prosecutors were so bent on convicting jefferson davis, et al.
in absentia at this trial, that the particulars of the accused before them
seemed to be treated as almost inconsequential.
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