By Brandon Copeland

Insanity Most Convenient

  The date is February 27, 1859, and a man strides confidently around Lafayette Park in Washington, D.C. He is in a good mood and hopes to meet his lover for a clandestine rendezvous. He is noted for his good looks, his womanizing ways, and has never had reason to fear walking the streets of the Nation’s Capital. He is the Attorney General of Washington, D.C., a scion of an important family, and well connected with the Capital’s powerbrokers. He makes the prearranged signal by leaving a blue ribbon visible outside the house that he and his lover make use of, and prepares to await her arrival. In the past he would go to a club across the street and await his lover while watching for her with opera glasses. Today, though, he sees someone he did not expect and who he had hoped would be out. His lover’s husband, who is also one of his best friends, comes striding down the street towards him. He is slow to sense the danger and extends his hand to great his friend; one must keep up appearances after all. What he does not know is that the affair is no longer a secret and that he is about to die. His friend, a first term congressman from New York, screams “[y]ou have dishonored my home and family” while reaching into his pocket and drawing a pistol. The man reaches into his own coat, but his pocket contains only the opera glasses. His friend fires 3 times at point blank range, including once while after the man has dropped to one knee. The man’s name is Phillip Barton Key II, and his story is over. His killer and former friend is Daniel Sickles and his story only gets more interesting.   

           Phillip Barton Key II was a successful Washington attorney who would die just short of his 41^st birthday. His more famous father had written the “Star Spangled Banner” and proceeded him as Washington, D.C.’s Attorney General. Key was a widower. Daniel Sickles was a charismatic and well connected first term Democratic Congressman. He was part of the powerful and infamous, New York City Tammany Hall political machine. The 40 years old Sickles had been a successful attorney, was considered an up and comer in the Democratic party, and had worked as a diplomat and a State Senator before being elected to Congress. Sickles’ wife and Key’s lover was, 23-year-old Teresa Sickles. She had married Sickles when she was only 16, against both families’ wishes. A child was born very early in their marriage, suggesting that the wedding occurred so as to avoid a scandal. Sickles and Key were apparently very much alike and became friends leading to Teresa being introduced to Key. At some point thereafter the two became lovers; adultery was a pervasive problem in Washington, D.C., then as now. While others commented on the closeness of Key and Teresa, it seems that Sickles was ignorant of the affair until February 24, 1859. 

           

On the 24th, Sickles received an anonymous letter with details about the affair. The letter read:

   Sickles confronted Teresa with these allegations, and she confessed to the affair. Sickles forced her to write a detailed confession. After that he stewed over his humiliation for two days. On the second day he saw Key walking near the home the letter warned of and appearing to signal his wife. Sickles threw on a heavy overcoat, despite the unseasonably warm day, and armed himself with 2 single shot derringers and a revolver, before confronting Key. After killing Key, Sickles picked up his opera glasses, and walked to the home of his friend (and the Attorney General of the United States) Jeremiah S. Black, confessed to the killing, and surrendered. He was allowed to stop by his home on the way to jail where he took his wife’s’ wedding ring and told her he intended to divorce her.

The killing was a sensation across the nation. Sickles played court to many of Washington’s elites after taking over the Warden’s private quarters. Public opinion clearly favored Sickle. This was an era where honor was still at the forefront of many Americans’ minds. Dueling was still legal in many states and happened all too often even when it was not. Honor was something that many Americans considered worth killing or dying to uphold. The Victorian sensibilities of the time held little sympathy for a man who had seduced a married woman and was subsequently murdered for it. The generally opinion seems to be that Key had it coming, Teresa was an awful person, and Sickles behaved honorably. Many even championed Sickles as a hero for saving Washington society from a man such as Key.

   From a legal standpoint, Sickles’ case seemed far less promising. He freely admitted the killing and expressed not a jot of remorse. He went on record in an interview with the New York Tribune saying, “[h]e dishonored me, and we could not live together on the same planet.” Rather then plead guilty Sickles hired a legal dream team, headed by soon-to-be Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton. Sickles entered what at that point was novel defense in American jurisprudence, arguing that he was temporarily insane at the time of the killing. While English common law had long recognized insanity as a defense to certain crimes, it only applied when the person was “totally deprived of his understanding and memory, and doth not know what he is doing, no more than an infant, a brute, or a wild beast.” When the Courts thought of insanity, they contemplated the person who had totally lost their reason and was permanently insane. Such a person needed to be confined an asylum rather than prison. The idea that Sickles was so insane at the time as to not be responsible for the killing but had recovered his sanity after committing murder was indeed novel. 

Sickles’ defense was also problematic because Sickles was almost certainly not insane at the time that he killed Key. He was no doubt enraged but his conduct before, during, and after the killing would make a temporary insanity defense by modern standards dubious at best. Sickles forced his wife to writ out a confession, waited two days, saw Key, armed himself with multiple firearms, put on heavy coat to hide his weapons, confronted his victim, shot him multiple times while clearly stating his reasons, surrendered, and then went home and punished Teresa for her infidelity. These do not seem the acts of a deranged mind acting in the heat of an uncontrolled passion. While one cannot truly know another’s mind, it certainly seems like premediated murder. It is likely that his legal team understood this and raised insanity as an excuse for the jury to nullify. 

           Sickles’ legal team did not focus on insanity alone but sought to show that despite his insanity he was also justified in killing Key. They made great use of the classic strategy of dragging the victim through the mud and added Teresa to the smear campaign. Key’s womanizing reputation and the details of the affair took center stage at the 20-day trial. When Teresa’s confession was thrown out by the Court, Sickles leaked it and many other details of the case to the press, ensuring it was the talk of the Capital. The defense made great use of the media to turn public opinion in Sickles’ favor; by its end it was clear who the heroes and villains of the story were. Sickles was a wronged man, defending traditional values, and avenging himself upon the adulterer who had invaded his marriage. 

           The prosecution was competent and tried a traditional case. They focused on Sickles’ behavior to disprove the insanity defense. They pointed out that legally the affair was not justification for the killing, no matter how salacious the details. It was clear, however, that the prosecution was swimming against the current of public opinion and were outclassed by their opponents. When the Judge instructed the jury that it could consider Sickles’ mental state at the time of the killing, the outcome became inevitable. It took less then 30 minutes for the jury to render a verdict (reports indicate it only took that long because one juror wished to pray on the matter before voting). The not guilty verdict was greeted with thunderous applause and Sickles left the courthouse to fanfare worthy of a concurring hero.

           The story did not end there. Sickles again scandalized the nation when he quickly reconciled with Teresa. It is not unfair to say he faced far more public criticism for taking her back then for killing Key. He briefly had to retire from public life, although he did not leave Congress. This surprising action made the image of him as the wronged husband much harder to rationalize. Sickles was a well-known philanderer for the remainder of his life. If Teresa followed suit, she was more discrete after Key’s death. They remained married, if estranged, until Teresa’s death in 1867 of Tuberculosis. 

If Daniel Sickles’ name seems familiar its because he is better known for his service as a Union general during the Civil War. In an effort to redeem his public image, he raised an entire brigade of New York volunteers to fight for the North. His military career culminated on the still-controversial decision to disobey orders and move his troops forward of off Cemetery Ridge on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg. This action would cost Sickles his right leg, almost completely destroy his unit, earn him the Medal of Honor, and, depending on which historian you read, save or nearly destroy the Union army. He would return to Congress after the war and played a critical role in the preservation of the Gettysburg battlefield and the erecting of many of its monuments.  Despite his monumental effects on that battle there is no monument to him on the battlefield, because he stole the money collected for the purpose. If one were trying to make the argument that Sickles was insane at any point in his life, they could point to the fact that he sent his severed leg and the cannonball that ruined it to the Smithsonian and frequently visited it throughout his life. He was nothing if not a colorful figure. Sickles lived until May 3, 1914. 

           While Sickles may not have been insane, the temporary insanity defense gained traction after his case. It is a not uncommon, if rarely successful defense, that is accepted by U.S. Courts. Generally, it is a controversial defense that is nowhere near as popular with the public as it was in Sickles’ case. I would argue that is because no one at the time actually cared whether Sickles was insane; they were just looking for an excuse. Unlike in Sickles’ case the testimony of experts on psychiatry is the corner stone of a modern temporary insanity defense. It is hard to imagine, by modern standards, that no medical doctor testified to Sickles’ insanity at his trial. Whether he meant to or not, Daniel Sickles created a precedent that echoes down to the modern day.