Crazy Dodge for Rawlings
Lawyer Cooper Says a Sane Man Would Do it Differently.
He Will Probably Work the Insanity Plea for the Elder Rawlings and Will Appeal to the Pardon Board for the Boys—Rawlings Meets his Boys and Counsels Them
(From Tuesday’s Daily)
The Macon Evening News of yesterday had an interview with Lawyer J.O. Cooper regarding the Rawlings case, which indicated that he expects to work the insanity plea on behalf of the elder Rawlings.
Lawyer Cooper says that no man who is in his right mind wants to be hung, and the very fact that Rawlings has written the Governor asking that there be no more delays in the execution is conclusive proof that Rawlings is a man of unsound mind.
Mr. Cooper will probably fight for the life of his senior client on this basis. He does not state, but it is generally understood that his efforts in behalf of Milton and Jesse Rawlings will be before the pardoning board for executive clemency. He will probably undertake to show that these boys were dominated by their father and that they were excusable in a large measure for the crime that was committed, provided of course, that they committed the crime charged against them.
A similar campaign was waged effectively in the case of young Burrell Patterson of North Georgia, who some time ago committed a crime of murder, the prison board taking the position that his father’s influence led to the crime. Young Patterson was said to be nineteen years old and committed the crime while intoxicated from whiskey, which had been given to him by his father in order to nerve him to commit the bloody crime.
Boys See the Old Man
The Rawlings boys were carried to the apartment occupied by their father in the county jail yesterday and had quite a lengthy talk with the old man. Milton did not talk any but was a quiet listener to the suggestions and counsel which the old man gave. Rawlings was in better humor than he has been in some time, and his advice to his boys seemed to be with deeper interest in their welfare than at any time recently.
He told them that it looked to him as if all hope was out, that all would have to be hanged as the law decreed. He told them to be brave, and not give way, that innocent men had been hung before, and that the fact of their innocence would make it easier for them to go through with the dreadful ordeal of living upon the gallows.
After the boys had been returned to their cells, the elder Rawlings talked at some length to the sheriff and to others in the jail.