OCR Text |
Show Defendant Acquitted By Jurors Mrs. Grace Coppard Found Not Guilty of Charges; Decision Reached Sunday Dramatic climax of the trial of Mrs. Grace Coppard came at 2:45 Sunday morning when a verdict of "not guilty" was handed to District Judge Jay L. Downing by the jury after six hours of deliberation. The defense had won its case on the plea that Mrs. Cappard had acted in self defense when she shot Paul Tipton at Soda Springs on August 23, 1941. Interest mounted daily as the case, which was tried in Preston on a change of venu granieu the defense, entered its last phases. Scores of persons packed the corridors corri-dors outside the crowded courtroom court-room Saturday in an effort to hear the pleas of the state attorneys, R. J. Dygert and Assistant Attorney General R. M. Kerr, and those of the defense, C. C. Swanson and P. J. Evans, as they placed their case before the jurors in masterful manner. man-ner. Later Saturday evening, Judge Downing instructed the jury as to the law which was "intended so far as was humanly possible to protect the innocent") and terms within the law, stating that they must act upon the evidence as produced in court. The decision reached by them must be unanimous in a case of this type on one of these possible possi-ble verdicts: murder n Hie first degree de-gree with a death sentence or life imprisonment, murder in the second sec-ond degree, voluntary manslaughter, manslaugh-ter, involuntary manslaughter, or acquittal. Saturday at 8:35 p. m. the jury filed from the stand with the knowledge that "upon their decision deci-sion dwelt the life of a fellow human hu-man being." Many persons remained in the court room hopefully awaiting an early verdict. As If by magic other people reappeared as word cams that the jury had reached a decision. |