Deadly Censorship: Murder, Honor, and Freedom of the Press

4. The Prosecution Case

4. the prosecution case Even before the first witness was called, there were strong signals that the focus of the case would not be on the details of the shooting but on challenges to the fairness of the State’s editorials attacking James H. Tillman and on whether they drove him to kill as the only way to stop them. Tillman’s argument that he acted to defend his person became overshadowed by the claim that he acted to defend his honor against newspaper vilification. This was not a legally recognized justification for a killing.1 The defense-of-his-person argument was a transparent pretext for the real justification, which was killing to redeem his honor. The defense had issued a subpoena ordering the victim’s elder brother, Ambrose Gonzales, president of the State Company, to appear in court and bring with him the State articles and editorials referring to James H. Tillman from April 15, 1902, to September 30, 1902. These publications supposedly contained the attacks on Tillman that cost him the gubernatorial nomination in the 1902 Democratic primary, which would have guaranteed his election to the governorship , and they allegedly intruded into his personal life. Ambrose Gonzales was present and had the files with him. After some argument, they were turned over to the defense.2 The taking of testimony began in midafternoon on Monday, September 28. In most jurisdictions, the prosecution would have given an opening statement providing the jury with a framework for the state’s evidence, which would have made each witness’s testimony understandable by showing how it related to the overall case. This was not done in the Tillman case. Professor W. Lewis Burke has found that the opening statement, after having been inherited from the prosecution case 81 England in colonial times, was used through the antebellum period but began to fade after the Civil War and disappeared from South Carolina practice by 1890. Rather than an opening statement, the prosecution introduced the case to the jury by simply reading the indictment. The abandonment of the opening statement was supposed to modernize and streamline the trial process.3 Instead it often denied the jury useful information regarding the relevancy of evidence to the overall shape of the case.4 In the absence of an opening statement at the Tillman trial, it would have been helpful for the first witnesses to have been people with comprehensive views of the killing, who could have given the jury a good idea of what happened. This also did not occur. Law-Enforcement Witnesses The first witness called by the prosecution was the arresting officer, George Boland, a forty-eight-year-old veteran policeman. Jury selection went faster than expected, and it was probably easiest to obtain the law-enforcement witnesses on short notice. Under questioning by Solicitor Thurmond, Boland testified that he did not witness the shooting but was nearby in the doorway of the city auditor’s office, which was across the street from the corner of Main and Gervais where the shooting occurred.5 His view was apparently blocked by streetcars surrounding the transfer station on that corner. But he heard the shot and saw a lady running from the scene. This prompted him to investigate. He saw James H. Tillman coming around one of the streetcars with a gun in his hand and going south toward the State House. Boland opened his coat to display his badge, addressed Tillman as “governor,” and told him he would have to arrest him. Tillman said “all right sir,” and cryptically added that he had “received Gonzales’s message.” Boland asked Tillman if he had shot Gonzales, and Tillman replied that he had shot and hit him. When Boland reached for the pistol, Tillman “pulled back a little” and said he needed to keep the pistol to protect himself. Boland explained that he would protect him and would have to take the pistol as a necessary part of the arrest. As they were walking west down the Gervais Street hill toward the jail, nearby in the same block, former judge Osmund W. Buchanan, Tillman’s brother-inlaw , who later became one of his attorneys, came running up. Boland did not know Buchanan and thought he might be there to attack Tillman or himself. He stepped between Buchanan and Tillman, but when Tillman explained that 141.35.60] Project MUSE (2024-04-26 08:55 GMT) 82 deadly censorship Buchanan was his brother-in-law, the three...