The Rhyme and Reason for Bad Judgments in Verse

In using light verse to sentence a murderer the other day, Superior Court Judge Robert Fitzgerald was not trying to lighten the sentence, I suspect, nor to lighten the mood of the courtroom.

Actually, I think he intended to intensify the awfulness of the sentence--life in prison without the possibility of parole--by casting it in light verse--a sort of dreadful irony.

Or maybe he was just in a playful mood.

Much as the judge may be applauded for introducing levity into the courtroom, it was not really very good verse. If I were the defendant I would appeal on the grounds that the literary style of my sentencing was ignominious, though I doubt that there is any legal merit in it.

However, it must be said for the judge that he was provoked by an equally deplorable verse written by the defendant in reference to a list of 54 persons he intended to murder, besides his wife, whom he did.

I’ll come in the night, I’ll come in the day/ I’ve chose for each their own special way/ All on the list will go to their grave.... Judge Fitzgerald was inspired, in reading sentence, to this:

You won’t kill in the night,

nor kill in the day/ All on your list can go

on their merry way....” You must agree that while the judge’s sentiment is appropriate, his meter is not of the first order. He might have quoted Wordsworth:

There was a time when meadow, grove and stream/ The earth and every common sight to me did seem/ Appareled in celestial light/ The glory and a freshness of a dream/ It is not now as it hath been of yore/ Turn wheresoe’er I may, by night or day/ The things which I have seen I now can see no more. Those ought to be solemn reflections for a man contemplating life in prison.

I am reminded of a speech given in 1861 in Santa Fe, N.M., by a famous frontier judge, Kirby Benedict, in sentencing Jose Manuel Martin to the gallows for murder. I have quoted these lines before, but perhaps they are worth repeating in the light of some pertinent new historical data and Judge Fitzgerald’s revival of the genre.

Troxey Kemper, editor of the Tucumcari Literary Review, has researched this legendary event and found that versions of the sentence vary, but the following is the most enduring.

“Jose Manuel Martin, in a few short weeks it will be spring. The snows of winter will flee away, the ice will vanish, and the air will become soft and balmy. In short, Jose Manuel Martin, the annual miracle of the years will awaken and come to pass, but you won’t be there.

“The rivulet will run its soaring course to the sea, the timid desert flowers will put forth their tender shoots, the glorious valleys of this imperial domain will blossom as the rose. Still, you won’t be here to see.

“From every treetop some wild woods songster will carol his mating song, butterflies will sport in the sunshine, the busy bee will hum happy as it pursues its accustomed vocation. The gentle breeze will tease the tassels of the wild grasses, and all nature, Jose Manuel Martin, will be glad but you. You won’t be here to enjoy it because I command the sheriff or some other officer of this county to lead you out to some remote spot, swing you by the neck from a knotting bough of a sturdy oak, and let you hang until you are dead. . . .”

Kemper doubts that an oak tree could have been found in the neighborhood of Santa Fe in 1861. It was more likely a sycamore.

Some published accounts say that Martin (a.k.a. Martinez) escaped from the sheriff and cheated the gallows several years later by falling from a wagon and breaking his neck. Others say he was hanged at the appointed hour.

Judge Benedict himself was known for his intemperate habits. At one point the citizens of New Mexico petitioned President Lincoln to remove him from the bench. Benedict had known Lincoln. They had been co-counsel in several legal cases. Lincoln is said to have written the petitioners as follows: “Well, gentlemen, I know Kirby Benedict. We have been friends for 30 years. He may imbibe to excess, but Benedict drunk knows more law than all the others on the bench in New Mexico. I shall not disturb him.”

That letter might be apocryphal, but it sounds like Lincoln, and it sounds like Benedict.

Lincoln later appointed Benedict a chief justice, but he left the bench for private practice. In 1866 he was disbarred for drunkenness and “obstreperous conduct before the court.”

He died either on the street or in bed. Take your choice.