Dream Team Goes to Bat for Lizzie Borden

Lizzie Borden was back on the witness stand, still wearing her Victorian outfit--complete with a parasol and pearls--and still claiming she did not hack her father and stepmother to death with an ax.

More than 100 years after her acquittal, Borden was acquitted again, this time at the mock Court of Historical Review and with help from one of O.J. Simpson’s lawyers.

The court, which uses volunteer lawyers and judges and hears about 10 cases a year, has decided such weighty issues as the birthplace of the martini (Martinez, Calif.) and the existence of Santa Claus (yes).

But at the nonjury trial in October, defense lawyer Peter Keane reminded the court that it also had a serious calling.

“It would be wrong for us to change history,” said Keane, an assistant public defender.

Borden was the star witness, played by Municipal Judge Diane Wick, looking as if she had just stepped out of the 1890s in a burgundy dress.

Borden, 32 at the time of the killings, said she worshiped her father and loved her stepmother “just like a real mother.”

Asked if she had killed them, she replied: “I certainly did not.”

In a courtroom filled with dozens of spectators, Keane urged Municipal Judge George Choppelas not to add to the unkindness Borden suffered after she was acquitted of the killings that took place in her home in Fall River, Mass., on Aug. 4, 1892.

Borden died in the same town in 1927, an ostracized spinster taunted by children: “Lizzie Borden took an ax and gave her mother 40 whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41.”

Borden was a victim of media hype and was “condemned by rhyme,” said Gerald F. Uelmen, who helped persuade a jury to acquit Simpson in the 1994 slayings of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ronald Lyle Goldman.

No murder weapon was discovered and although there was “a shower of blood, not one drop was found on Lizzie,” Uelmen said. Father Andrew Borden, a banker and the wealthiest landlord in town, had many enemies, he said.

As in the Simpson case, there was no second suspect. But the defense told the judge that Andrew Borden was heard arguing with a man in the house a few days before he was slain.

Prosecutors Frank Russoniello, a former U.S. attorney, and Frank Winston insisted that only Borden had the opportunity and motive to carry out the slayings.

She was jealous of her stepmother and wanted her father’s $500,000 estate, an enormous sum at a time when a loaf of bread sold for 5 cents, they said.

Despite the recounting of details about the blood and blows--the victims received far less than is told in the rhyme--both sides provided the levity that has made the mock court famous.

At one point, the defense asked if Borden had been read her Miranda rights, a right to a lawyer extended decades after the killings.

“Carmen Miranda wasn’t even born,” answered Russoniello, drawing laughter with the reference to the Latin American movie star with the outlandish headdresses.