Linda Brown took Delphi Study Club members through Abraham Lincoln’s final court trial as reported by Dan Abrams and David Fisher in Lincoln’s Last Trial: The Murder Case That Propelled Him to the Presidency. Brown reviewed the book at the club’s March meeting. In 1859, Lincoln was hired to defend Quinn Harrison, charged with murdering Greek Crafton in Pleasant Plains, Ill. Lincoln, who had attracted national attention by his debates with Stephen Douglas, faced the risk of losing his following if he lost and also faced personal challenges since he had been a friend and mentor of the victim and a close friend of the alleged murderer’s father. The trial was held in Springfield, and Lincoln paid stenographer Robert Roberts Hitt, who had been hired by the Illinois State Journal to provide daily transcripts of the trial, for a copy of the transcripts. The original transcripts were discovered in 1989 in Fresno, Calif., in a shoebox in the garage of a home once owned by Harrison’s great grandson. The authors of the book used these transcripts to reconstruct the trial. The murder resulted from an altercation between Harrison and Crafton, and the plea was self-defense; the prosecutor claimed the crime was premeditated murder. Lincoln convinced the judge to allow Crafton’s deathbed statement that he had brought [the stabbing] upon himself and that he forgave Harrison. Lincoln’s eloquence resulted in a “not guilty” verdict, and his victory influenced his nomination for the Presidency of the United States nine months later. Attending the meeting in the home of Gayle Kuchera were Ann Cales, Evelyn Coyle, Beverly Frazier, Gayle Kuchera, Carolyn Ott, Vivian Pemberton, Marjilea Smithheisler, Neva Staton, Brown and Kuchera.
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