Trivia 2-16-17 Murder!

[Mark F. Jenkins]

Huh. I was going to say Dan "I value the leg I lost more than one I still have" Sickles, but I can't recall him having a Cabinet post under Lincoln.

Edit - There's a good reason why you can't recall him having a post in Lincoln's Cabinet.

Hoosier

 

[TinCan]

Edwin Stanton

 

[JohnDLittlefield]

Daniel "Devil Dan" Sickles

 

[FarawayFriend]

Didn't we have a similar question a few days ago?

Edwin M. Stanton

 

[JOHN42768]

I believe you want Edwin M. Stanton. He was a member of Dan Sickles defense team, although Jame T. Brady was the one who argued on the insanity plea. Stanton was part of the team and to be a member of Lincoln's Cabinet
Sources: http://laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/reason-insanity
http://www.encyclopedia.com/law/law-magazines/daniel-sickles-trial-1859

Good thing my short term memory still works

 

[Rusty Ford]

Daniel Sickles

Edit - Sorry, Rusty, your answer is not correct, but welcome to the trivia game and to CivilWarTalk, anyway.

Hope you'll come back and play again.

Hoosier

 

[Aussie Billy Sherman]

Edwin Stanton

 

[MRB1863]

Dan Sickles had a team of high powered attorneys handling his case, including Edwin M. Stanton who later became Secretary of War. Sickles had the sympathy of Washington society, and if adultery could have been used as defense to murder he would have been easily acquitted. Instead, his attorneys argued that Teresa's infidelity had driven him temporarily insane. The jury agreed and for the first time in American history temporary insanity was successfully used as a defense to the charge of murder.

 

[MaryDee]

OOPS--forgot to bold my answer, which was Edwin Stanton. Especially bad of me because I mentioned two names!

 

[sarladaise]

Edwin M. Stanton - future Secretary of War

 

[JohnW.]

This question is incredibly confusing as it is written. Does this mean one of Lincoln's future cabinet members pleaded insanity on his OWN behalf as a defendant??? None of Lincoln's cabinet members was ever charged with murder before or after his presidency. The very first person in U.S. history ever to use insanity as a defense was Dan Sickles in 1859, and he was NEVER a cabinet member in the Lincoln administration. If this is loosely referring to a defense attorney entering a plea on behalf of a defendant....attorneys do not enter pleas of any kind....Defendants do; the defense attorney merely verbalizes the defendant's wishes. The only thing that even makes any kind of sense is that Edwin Stanton was representing Dan Sickles and Stanton "entered a plea of insanity" on behalf of Dan Sickles. Sooooo....my answer to this is more than likely wrong, but final answer is Edwin M. Stanton.

 

[Nayinpa]

Dan Sickles

 

[hoosier]

If the answer isn't Edwin M. Stanton, I think a whole lot of people are going to be confused.

 

[bixby272]

Edwin McMasters Stanton

 

[GELongstreet]

Edwin Stanton.

 

[chellers]

Edwin Stanton

 

[amweiner]

Edwin M. Stanton

Edit - You get credit for a correct answer, amweiner. Welcome to the trivia game and to CivilWarTalk.

Hope you'll come back and play again.

Hoosier

 

[ami]

William H. Seward, future Secretary of State, entered the first plea of insanity in the USA in 1847. His client was William Freeman, the murderer of John and Sarah van Nest, Sarah's mother and the couple's two year old son in 1847. Seward lost the case but on appeal won the right to fully argue the insanity defense in a new trial. Unfortunately, Freeman died in jail of tuberculosis before the case could be tried.
http://www.nycourts.gov/history/leg...story-new-york-legal-eras-people-freeman.html

Future Attorney General and then Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton made the first plea of "TEMPORARY insanity" in the case of Daniel Sickles' murder of Philip Barton Key in 1859. He succeeded in his argument.
http://www.historyandheadlines.com/first-successful-use-of-temporary-insanity-defense/

Edit - It is true that the original question did not include the word "temporary," nor did it say that the first insanity defense was successful. The official answer of William H. Seward is quite correct.

It is also true that we very recently had a question that dealt with Daniel Sickles' murder trial and Edwin Stanton's role in the temporary insanity defense that won acquittal for Sickles, which undoubtedly influenced a great many, if not all of our players to think that this question was about the same incident.

And I can tell you that it is true that when I enter "first plea of insanity as defense in USA" into my search engine, the very first source that comes up is the Wikipedia article on "insanity defense," and the search engine's brief summary includes the excerpt "The defense was first used by U. S. Congressman Daniel Sickles." By contrast, the nycourts.gov website cited as the source supporting the official correct answer is not among the first forty sources that my search engine came up with.

So, although we can all learn something from this question, I am going to accept Edwin Stanton as a correct answer.

I will not, however, accept Daniel Sickles as a correct answer. The question clearly asked for the name of a future member of Lincoln's Cabinet, and Sickles never served as such.

Hoosier