death against the defendant, Francis Silver. On motion judgment is granted against Jackson Stuart and Isaiah Stuart, sureties to the appeal, for the cost of this court in the suit incurred.
Jno. L. Henderson
Clerk of Supreme Court of North Carolina
I folded the letter and put it back among the other letters that had come for me that day. There’s an end to it, I thought, but I could not help feeling saddened at this turn of events.
David Newland, the owner of the stagecoach line, stood nearby, watching me. Since he brings most of the news to Morganton, it is not unnatural that he should take an interest in it. “Bad tidings, Mr. Gaither?” he said, ambling over to join me.
“It is very bad indeed for Mrs. Silver,” I said. “Her appeal has been denied.”
He frowned. “So Mr. Woodfin was not able to persuade the justices to show her mercy?”
I hesitated, but I could see no way to evade the question, and I told myself that it was no business of mine anyhow. “According to the letter, Mr. Woodfin was not there.”
“But who presented her case to the justices, then? Mr. Wilson has not left town these past weeks.”
I could not meet his gaze, for I knew that I would see the outrage I myself felt mirrored in his eyes. “No one appeared on her behalf before the Supreme Court. The case was judged only on the merits of the written appeal.” A document of some three and a half hundred words, cribbed together by me in weariness and haste on the night following the trial. Her life had depended on this brief and colorless cluster of words, and it had failed her.
David Newland’s eyes widened. “She had no lawyer to plead her case in Raleigh? No one?”
I studied the wagon tracks in the red dust at my feet. “It’s a long way to Raleigh,” I murmured.
“Don’t I own the stagecoach, by God? I know how far it is, Mr. Gaither. I know exactly. And if I had been hired by that poor girl’s family to see her through her troubles, I would have kept my word, so help me I would, even if Raleigh was halfway to hell and stank of brimstone.”
I could think of nothing to say that would not cast aspersions on my fellow attorneys, so I merely patted him on the arm and tried to summon a smile.
“Well, what must be done now?” asked Newland.
“Done?” I stared at him. “There is nothing to be done. The jury ruled, and the State Supreme Court has upheld their decision. It is all over now, except for the sentencing, which will come in the fall term of court, and then the execution that must follow.”
“We’ll see about that,” Newland said.
“I beg your pardon?”
He sighed. “You know, Mr. Gaither, when we had that trial back in March, tempers were high around here, and I don’t mind telling you that I was as eager as the rest to see that young woman hanged for her crime, but there has been talk around town lately. People are saying that Charlie Silver didn’t amount to much, and maybe he got what was coming to him. They’ve been mulling this case over, and now I hear folks saying that a decent woman doesn’t turn to violence but for one reason: to defend herself, or more likely her child. They had a little baby girl, as I recall.”
“A daughter,” I murmured. “Just over a year old when the murder took place.”
Newland nodded triumphantly. “There you are. That set me to thinking, all right. Why didn’t her lawyers admit she killed Charlie Silvers and then explain why?”
I sighed. It is difficult to explain the law to laymen. They seem to think that justice has to do with right and wrong, with absolutes. Perhaps when we stand before our Maker on Judgment Day, His court will be a just one, but those trials held on earth are not about what happened, but about what can be proven to have happened, or what twelve citizens can be persuaded to believe happened. Sometimes I think that the patron saint of lawyers ought to be Pontius Pilate, for surely he said it best:
David Newland tugged at my sleeve. “You’re a lawyer, Mr. Gaither. Why didn’t they just tell us what happened instead of stonewalling with a plea of not guilty?”
I sighed. “It would have been a great gamble to have admitted her guilt in open court. There was no proof of self-defense, for there is only Mrs. Silver’s word for it, and she was not at liberty to testify. Her attorneys must have felt it was safer to make the state prove her guilt on the circumstantial evidence, rather than admit that she did it, with no means to show provocation.”
“Someone should have explained the situation to those judges in Raleigh.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered. The Supreme Court does not decide guilt or innocence. They rule on procedural matters. They cannot pardon as a governor can.”
“A governor?” Newland winced. “I had occasion to meet Mr. Montfort Stokes in Wilkesboro last April. The trial was still fresh in our minds, and when I discussed the matter with him, I was dead set against a pardon. I told him she would deserve what she got, and I said the rest of the county was pretty much to my way of thinking. I believe I misspoke, though, and now I must put things right. The governor can be appealed to, and if Montfort Stokes can be made to see reason, she might yet be saved.”
“It is worth a try,” I told him.
“Will you write him, then?”
I shook my head. “It would not be seemly for a Superior Court clerk to protest a ruling from his own court.” I did not like to think what Squire Erwin would say if I had undertaken such a measure. “I suppose I could sign a petition, though,” I said. “As a private citizen. The letter will need to be accompanied by a petition showing wide support for the prisoner within the county.”
“Who should write the governor then?”
He looked at me shrewdly. “I might. There may be one or two gentlemen who could advise me on how to set forth my argument. And I have business in Raleigh in early September, so I shall take care to see that he gets it.”
I smiled. “I’m sure that Governor Stokes’s door is always open to the citizens of Burke County.”
Several weeks later David Newland again waylaid me as I happened to be waiting for the stage. “I have it done!” he said proudly. “That letter to the governor. I have headed it ‘Raleigh,’ for I shall deliver it when I get there.”
He handed me the letter for inspection.
Raleigh, 6 Sept. 1832
His Exelency
M. Stokes, whom I had the pleasure of seeing in Wilksboro some time in April last.
The circumstances of Mrs. Silvers killing her husband was named and you was told that a petition would be presented to you for her pardon. The petition has come in hand for your consideration. At the time aluded to in Wilksboro you claimed you did not know of there ever having been a female executed in N. Carolina & asked if I had-to which I answered in the negative. You then said you would be delicately situated & asked me my opinion. I answered that if rumor be true I thought her a fit subject for example.
But Sir from various information which I have rec’d since her trial I am induced to believe her gilt has been much exagerated which you will perceive by the opinion some gentlemen of the Bar whom has signed her petition & was present & also disinterested during her trial. Upon the whole I realy think her a fit subject for excitive Clemency.
Yours, sinsearly,
