We are going to talk about this case in a couple of different sections. First, we will talk about the case itself. As we talk about this case, i want you to keep two things in the back of your mind. We are going to come back to talk about these. First is, i want you to think about how this case is both similar and different from the Lizzie Borden murder trials from 1893. About 100 years earlier. The second is a question of, why do you know who this he borden is. Raise your hand if you heard about the jean harris murder trial before this class. You had all heard of Lizzie Borden, right . I want to talk about why some cases remain more famous than others. Especially because everybody talks about cases as if they are this case of the century, the trial of the century. We will begin with opening statements. Most of america really got to know our alleged perpetrator and our victim in the opening statements. Today, Luke Nicholas will be presenting. Representing the prosecution, he will go first. Our second guest will go next. Luke, representing the prosecution will go first and julia immediately after. Ready . Come on up. I will step away. I would like to begin just by thanking my colleague for defending jean harris. Aso a heavier note, my role the prosecutor of the state is not to defend the moral character of dr. Tarn our. Paint a false picture. My duty to the people of the state of new york is to uphold the foundation of our society. Justice. I must do this in a fair and equitable way. I must provide evidence, expert witness, and the testimony of dear friends and family. I must make known the truth of what happened on the night of march 10, 1980. This is a solemn undertaking. I take no joy in the facts of this case. Wish it were that we were not here finding ourselves in such a terrible situation. But as many, many years of Human History have shown us, jealousy, hatred, and revenge, all too often distort and disfigure mankind. It seems as though the british had been congreve and they wrote the architect is now famous through this maxim, heaven hath no rage. Scorned, a powerful word, meaning belittled, or demeaned, to the point of fury. I have seen, to my deep dissatisfaction, that ms. Harris was a woman scorned. Consumed with jealousy, with hatred, that led her to murder her lover of 14 years. As you will see by the testimony of her sons and her colleagues, ms. Harris was a tightly bound woman, a commanding woman, a woman easily offended by irreverent actions. She was the headmistress of the allgirls school in mcqueen, virginia. The stress of such an occupation was augmented by the constant challenge to her authority is headmistress. Contacting explosions and reprimands handed down from her office to disobedient students. She was embattled in her position as such positions are. She is a woman who believes that if all miscreants would follow her way, they would be reformed and in stoic discipline. As all of us have seen before, she fell in love with a man who could be perceived as her exact opposite. Maybe she saw an opportunity to reform him, a conquest to prove her own pedagogical power. A mighty triumph, it would have been, to take dr. Tarnower away from his horse, as she called them, and reformed him. Make him see the light to a good strong woman like herself. I daresay, she dreamt. But this was not to be. He was set in his ways. He was set in his ways. As abhorrent as they may be to us. As the two grew close, as oftentimes couples like this do, like two worlds colliding, opposites attracting. Different values, friends, attitudes, and agendas. They remained together for 14 years. The affairs, i do mean the sexual endeavors of the doctor outside of his relations with jean harris were unknown known to jean harris. She never thought any of these floozies a threat, until the beautiful lane came into the picture. Ms. Harris would tell police after fleeing the scene of a murder, not only did she in fact shoot the doctor, but he slept with every woman he could. And i have had it. Jean harris was of a sober mind as she got in her car in the late hours on the evening of march 10th, 1980. She had with her a. 32 caliber pistol. A coat, and a scornful intention to kill her lover. Jealousy had become fury. The rival in this love triangle had cut up thousands of dollars worth of her clothing and encouraged the doctor to stay away from jean. Miss harris had a plan. She drove from virginia to new york that night. Walked into the dark garage of , up theowers house spiral staircase that led to his bedroom. She drew the gun. She yelled at him after seeing the negligee of Lynne Tryforos. She then squeezed her trembling finger on the cold trigger of the. 32 caliber handgun five times. Killing the man who had scorned her. Possibly wishing that Lynne Tryforos had not left early that night, or she, too, likely would have been murdered. Jean harris picked up her coat and gun, and she exited the house the way she would come in. She got into her car and began driving back to virginia. After evading the police by making a drastic uturn, she was pulled over. She admitted to the crime. Now, here today, she sits in the courtroom. She is not pleading insanity, or any instability of mind. She has confessed to the murder of dr. Tarnower in a spite of a jealous rage. This love triangle ended abruptly at the discharge of that. 32 caliber pistol. One shot pierced through the palm of the doctors hand and into his chest as he raised his hands to shield himself. We are left beyond a reasonable doubt, and the evidence will show that jean harris consciously, voluntarily, and intentionally fired five shots, the five shots that murdered the doctor on the night of march 10, 1980. I leave in the hands of the jury truth. May you by the grace of god, bring justice to the family and friends of dr. Tarnower. Thank you. [applause] your honor, opposing counsel, members of the jury, its easy to paint a woman of high stature and independence such as ms. Harris as arrogant and with uncontrollable temper. It is easy to accuse such a woman as driven with jealousy and rage when she discovered her lover of 14 years, who asked for her hand in marriage, only to take it away because had had a wandering eye. Ladies and gentlemen, the prosecution is looking for the easy way out. But unlike the prosecution, you know just because something is easy doesnt mean it is correct. The tale of an old woman seeking revenge for a lover running for someone younger is not only cliche, it is simply not the case when it comes to ms. Harris. At the height of her life, ms. Harris felt she was at her lowest as her reputation as a discipline headmistress of a academy was under fire. Her integrity was broken. She couldnt walk away despite knowing about the affair not because she was upset, because she loved him so much, she could not accept it. The prosecution has brought forth evidence that they believe she committed such a horrific crime. Ladies and gentlemen, the only motive that she had was the motive to end her life. The prosecution i tell you the night of march 10, 1980 ms. Harris sent to the home to shoot his four times in the chest. With a. 32 caliber pistol. They will fail you failed to tell you that miss harris left behind a suicide note. They will fail to tell you about the bruises found on her arms. Indicative of a struggle. When tried to pull her arms away when she pointed to her head. The same struggle as the bullets went through the palm ever to cover the gun. They will show you a letter written by ms. Harris and will , say it shows undeniable proof of the intent to kill lover. It will fail to tell you that this letter is only representative at the time she found out. This is not presented representative of their 14 year marriage. They will also fail to tell you s written by mr. Tarnower. Written as prescriptions for sedate sedatives, sleeping pills and amphetamines. They will also tell you how officers overheard miss harris admit she committed the crime. The same officers who physically the same mishandled the evidence because they were unequipped and lacked the knowledge to follow the proper procedures of the crime scene. The prosecution has the burden to prove to you that mrs. Harris had one, the motive and the means, with the intent and the langley, and beyond a reasonable doubt, that ms. Harris committed this crime. The prosecution will fail. Members of the jury, jean harris loved mr. Tarnower despite everything. She did not want to kill the man who she remembers warning her whew the night of march 10 was not driven by hate, but a woman resulting a woman struggling with her Mental Health. I implore you to turn this verdict over as not guilty. Thank you. [applause] well done. You dont need me for the rest of the class. That was very. Since we are all all here and they pay me to do this, we will continue. This is a case where geography matters. You know how much i like maps. Geography matters here, because it reveals social status. Dont worry, there will be more maps. Heres the big picture. Denver, over here. Detroit, right here. Cleveland is right here. This is lake erie. Washington, d. C. Is down here. Philadelphia is about here. And new york city is here. Hermann tarnower lived just outside of new york city near the connecticut border. Lets talk about the back story. There is a little bit more. We will start with jean harris story before she met tarnower. She was born in 1923 to a wealthy family. In a particularly known suburb known as shaker heights. I got this information from a combination of sources. I read a whole bunch of articles from the time of the trial. I also read a biography by about jean harris by a woman named shana alexander. To be clearly candid, this biography is not unbiased. The opening sentence basically alexander says jean harris could have been her. So, not unbiased at all. In that biography, which was based on just tons of letters and interviews while she was in prison, alexander argues that harris problem with her Mental Health and her problems with men begin as a child. It is the 1920s, her father is a very successful businessman, in addition to living in shaker heights, they vacation. Heres detroit. This line is the canadian border. They went vacation on the canadian side of lake erie. Allegedly, ms. Harris father was a cold and distant guy. Jean harris was smart. She did well in high school. She went off to Smith College and graduated phi beta kappa. She did everything a wealthy young woman of that era was supposed to do. Once she got her degree, she got married. She got married to a guy named james harris, a boy she had known. James harris also fit the bill of someone you should marry. He was a nice guy, but he was not terribly ambitious. He came from a good family, but when he graduated from college, he was not moving up in his company as he would like. And he was not making as much money as either of the two had grown up with. Jean harris life starts to deviate from what was expected from a woman at this point. James had moved to grosse pointe, michigan. Outside of detroit. Another wealthy suburb. They had two sons, and they send the boys to to private school but they didnt have enough money. So, jean got her masters in education and began teaching at a private girls school. This changed the dynamics between james and jean quite a bit. She later would say she married james to irritate her father. In the end, they got divorced at around 1964. Jean took a new job in philadelphia. She was the headmistress of a girls middle school. One of the advantages of that is sons could go to the Brother School of where she was headmistress. Now, he comes from a different tarnower comes from a different background. His parents are immigrants. He was born in 1910. He lived the american dream. He went to college and medical school during world war ii. After world war ii, he moved up, just outside of new york, so heres manhattan down here. He moved to an area up here, purchase, new york. He started a Medical Clinic and specialized in cardiology. The Medical Clinic became quite successful. Multiple members joined, he was one of the lead doctors most of the time. He was by all accounts, he was very successful, not only as a doctor, but socially. He really enjoyed to travel, and he traveled on his own and he traveled as a guest of some of his patients. He enjoyed the idea of them saying they were traveling with their private doctor. He liked hunting and he went on safaris. He enjoyed golf and tennis at the country clubs that would him. He was jewish, so not all of the local pubs would admit him. Local clubs. He was a bit of a ladies man. He would have lots of different girlfriends. He seemed well on his way to being a perfectly happy wealthy player, until he meets jean harris in 1966. It is a set up. They have these mutual friends who live in new york city. As luck would have it, they had gone off to visit the soviet union separately, relatively recently. The friends thought the two of them would get along because they enjoyed travel, they were witty, all of those things, and so, they had a party, they set the two of them up, and it worked. They began dating. And, after a year or 18 months or so, they got engaged. Here is where the stories diverge a little bit. Tarnower were never serious about the engagement. Other reports are that he was completely serious about the engagement, but she, with her sons who were not yet 18, she felt she did not want to introduce that element of a stepfather into their life, even though she had been dating. They all travel together. And so, in her autobiography, jean harris insisted that she was pretty much ready to call the engagement off. When hermann tarnower called it off. Regardless of who called it off, the engagement ends. Jean returns the very expensive Engagement Ring. He says to keep it, dont keep it, back and forth, eventually she keeps the wedding ring. All along, jean has issues with money, and she doesnt want to be seen as taking his money. The engagement is off, but the relationship is not. This is again, where perspectives change. Everything on the story depends on whose perspective youre listening to and whose perspective you believe. It is made more complicated, because tarnower died before he could write his memoirs. Jean admits that he was a bit of a ladies man, she does not think he was necessarily dating folks while they were engaged, but after the engagement ended he , started his playing ways and dating other women again. She says i can live with this, because i know that i am special. He takes it as fair game. Ando what he wants to do, they continue their relationship. They continue to travel together. She hosts parties for him, she offers him decorating advice. In a lot of ways, she acts like it is a longterm girlfriend, kind of like a wife, except she does not live with him permanently. She then moved even closer to where he was. He is on the border of connecticut and new york, and she gets a job as a headmistress in another girl school in connecticut by the house about 45 minutes from tarnowers. Maybe she spends the night, maybe she goes back home, but she is super close. A couple years after that, she she decides she wants to change. She ends up working for a corporation in manhattan. She drives up to manhattan every day. She is perfectly happy. Now, in the background of all this, at about 1970, jean harris complaints that she is having complains that she is having problems with exhaustion and she is just so tired. And if there is anything he can do to help. He prescribes drugs. He starts with a prescription methamphetamine. Then, not surprisingly, she cant sleep. So, he gives her sleeping pills. They later said she was probably depressed, and the drugs were covering the depression. Its important to remember that she spends 10 years on methamphetamine. This is going to come back to us. In 1977, things are going to change. Because harris moves again. She gets a different job. And this time, it is in washington, d. C. She is headmistress of an elite boarding school. This changes the dynamic. She is much further away physically. It is the longer 45 minutes, i can pop over. Now she is 275 miles. In 1980, that is about a five hour drive. She has to go through philadelphia, new york city, or washington, d. C. All to get to him. You can imagine what its like with traffic. Tarnower has, in his mind more freedom. This contest relationship going on for a while but they spend more time together because jean is not there. At tarnoweros works s Medical Clinic. She gets to say high every day. She is seeing him every night and attending parties with him. Gina south side washington, d. C. It is beginning to get into her head. Then Something Else also happens that changes the dynamic. Tarnower publishes a diet book. This was a huge diet book. It was one of the first diet books to be crazy big. It was so big that last year my mom was going through my family has a book collecting problem every once in a while, they take other books they do not want anymore, but that they put them in a giant box, and whoever visits next, they take out whatever books they want. My mom had a copy of the scarsdale diet in her box. I should have taken it. Ebay anduy it on amazon for super cheap. To save you time, it is a lowcarb, lowcalorie diet. It says you can lose up to 20 pounds in 14 days. That is the lowcalorie part of it. The book itself, which is like sick this thick was based on the twopage handout used to give to cardiac patients, which set eat less red meat, avoid sugar, alcohol, then he expanded it to get into this book. The book is a huge hit, makes a ton of money. It published in late 1978. It finished number two on the nonfiction bestseller list. There is an estimated income of about 11 million. To put this in perspective, he was probably getting between 10 and 20 of the proceeds, so that is one or 2 million 1 is off of this book. 1. 1 million off of this book. Dollars he is probably making not only that, he is now gone from being a local doctor that everybody likes to dr. Oz famous. He is on television, and people know who he is, he is a demand. They invited to parties, they give him awards. Jean, who is feeling out of it, is alienated further. In 1981sked jane harris who wrote this book, she is going to say she was a coauthor. They asked the guy who is the coauthor, a guy named sinclair baker, and he says no. She offered some suggestions she gets mentioned in the acknowledgments. Jean thinks that she contributed more. So it adds to the tension in a in the relationship it adds so much tension, that she is thinking about things like money. He is getting his accolades, she cant get away from her job in washington dc, and she wants to go to the awards. He does something that irritates her more. He writes her a check. Remember the battle over the diamond Engagement Ring . You keep it, no, i dont want it, well, they do that with the check, too. I dont want your money, heres the money. Tax purposes. And then harris reports that she felt like he was trying to buy her. He was trying to buy her for four grand. She is offended sh he is trying to buy her, and she is irritated that it is only 4000. She thinks she is worth more. Shes irritated that there is a check at all. Remember, this is a woman who has been on methamphetamines for 10 years, which doesnt help anything at all. She sees this as a time where the relationship is changing. She is still worried about the other woman and how the doctor feels. It is complicated because he doesnt get to write his book and tell his story. He is pulling away a little bit, but there are many accounts of jean harris driving up to washington dc, but not a lot of accounts of him going down to see her. He was also a very generous man. Jean had these two sons. Their parents got divorced in their early teens. Tarnower is so present in their life, when the older son gets married, he is present in their lives, when the older son gets married, he gives a toast at the rehearsal dinner, he goes to it, the man is acting like these young mens father. He has given a great deal to the family. He clearly cares about jean and her kids. But jeans isolated. At madeira. 1981, itfrom 80 is more recent. It is outside of washington dc, virginia which is , only about 12 miles from d. C. A lot of it is wooded. By all accounts, it feels fairly isolated. I have never been on the campus, but i have driven past. It is big. Despite being in the middle of past. Despite being in the middle of an urban area, it feels isolated. More isolatedlt for jean harris because she is a grown up. There are only two or three other resident faculty members. She is the boss. It is not like she can hang out with the other faculty members and have a relationship. She is physically isolated. She is socially isolated. She writes tons of letters, none of which are a good idea. Concerns about this relationship seemed to be eating at her. They show up more and more in letters to him. In her comments to her lawyers during the trial, she accuses lynn of all sorts of things. She accuses lynn of they would each stay at tarnowers house and leave stuff. It was kind of like they were marking their territory. A scarf, oreave makeup, or a toothbrush. Jean harris never admitted to messing with jeans stuff. But lynn messed with her stuff all the time. Lynn took human feces and rubbed it into a new dress that jean had left. Jean claims that lynn stalked her by the telephone, and would make threats. At the same time, there were reports that jean would call the clinic where both lynn and tarnower worked and talk trash. We do not know lynn tryfoross story because she did not give interviews. She remains private and stays out of the public eye today. I couldnt tell you where she has her what she is doing. And then we have got her job. The job is not going terribly well. It is 1980 and the world is changing. Lets think about what we know what the expectation is for girls prior to 1980. Jean harris is what we expect of young ladies of wealth and privilege. Go toe supposed to school, go to a girl school, get their degree and get married and have children. Oft was the expectation madeira girls. Things had changed. Who remembers what happened in 1972 . Yes. Title ix comes along. But this title ix do . You could no longer discriminate against girls and women in educational settings. What does that mean . It means that jean harris had to go to Smith College because it was a women school. It was one of the best schools open to her. Her students could go to yale and go to stanford. They can go to princeton. They can go to the university of virginia, they can go all to all of these places that were not open to jean harris. The expectations are changing as well. The expectations are no longer that you go to college, get married have kids, and relive the 1950s. Youre supposed to have a career. Socially, things are changing as well. We have had recreational drugs about as long as we have had human beings. As soon as somebody figured out i can smoke this or take this, they were probably doing it. In the early 80s drugs werepretty printed on the east pretty rampant on College Campuses on the east coast. Madeira, theres no exception. Remember, it is the 1980s in northern virginia. Marijuana is not legal in any way shape or form and its not legal for kids under the age of 18. They were facing financial challenges. Girls schools were not as popular. They were expensive. Shes under pressure her board of trustees because they want to be raising more money. She is trying to balance keeping her girls safe from drugs. Remember, she is on prescription methamphetamines. I should add that those prescriptions werent all in her name. Why werent the prescriptions in her name . Does anyone know what the deal is with first descriptions of our doctors allowed to prescribe to families . No, they are not supposed to prescribe to family. They know that this relationship might not bear scrutiny. Late 70s, things are flexible. She has got girls using pot and drugs. She has got the stress of the finances. The board of trustees is after her. And she has a bad weekend followed by the worst monday ever. Over the weekend it becomes clear that in one particular dorm theres a lot of hot. Pot. Is a particular problem, because this is one of the things. Youre going to say really . What did you expect . There were no adults living in the dorm. The head of house was a 12th grader. She appears to have just been distributing it, sharing it with friends. F of the Judiciary Council student Judiciary Council lived in this dorm and his smoking pot. Jean harris flips out and she is not amused by any of this. She shouldnt be because she is the head mistress. They are breaking the law. Some of these kids are seniors. It is march, they are waiting for college acceptances. Somehow it appears that half of the campus is involved in it. Multiple girls get expelled. If you are a wealthy parent and it is march and your princess is going to go to princeton, how are you going to feel shes been expelled for smoking pot . Youre not going to be happy, are you . If youre not a happy parent, what you going to do . Youre going to sue. Youre going to make phone calls. Youre going to be angry. Youre going to be loud. And thats precisely what happened over the weekend. Theres lots of angry phone calls. All of monday. People yelling at jean harris. Theres one other problem. On thursday or friday before the weekend jean harris ran out of her own drugs, so she is coming off the methamphetamines. 10 years, and she has taken the weekend off. Not the weekend you want to stop taking methamphetamines. Not that you want to start, i want to be clear. It is ugly. That leads us to monday. It is not a good monday. Everybody yells at her all day. She was a very literate woman. Literary i guess is the best phrase. She liked to write letters. She wrote letters on monday. She explained that she is going to kill herself and that she is so worthless as a human being that she should not be buried she should be cremated. And her ashes dumped. Its actually kind of tragic. She tells different people that she is frustrated. One of her teachers feels so badly, she gathers daisies on the property and uses it for support. Her staff assumes she is going to quit because things are going badly. And she does quit. She just takes a different route to that quitting. She packs up her stuff, not a lot of clothes, just the 32 caliber pistol that she takes. She decides to drive from d. C. To new york to kill her self. She is very clear that she intends to kill herself. At the trail she says, i wanted ando to tarnowers house kill myself by the pond where the daffodils bloom in the spring because it is home. She wanted to go home to die. That was a fivehour drive which doesnt help if youre talking about murder. Where did she get the gun . There is including conflicting information it appears that she had a handgun for a couple of years. Alexander claims that she first tried to buy a handgun 10 years before she met hy. She originally bought it before she was contemplating suicide. They wouldnt sell it to her because when no evidence of it either way. It is just jean harris story. Jean harris claimed she tried to buy another gun. They didnt sell it to her for whatever reason. Theander attributed it to suspicion that whoever was selling the guns thought you might be suicidal. She seems to have bought a handgun which she used high and , that she intended to shoot herself several years before this. So she had it for a while. So you have to give her credit for focus. She drove the five hours, she gets up to the house. She goes into the house and a five hour drive she lots of present. She calls him and he says dont come. She does anyway. She runs through the traffic she stays through work. She does not get there until the evening. Maybe 11 00. She gets in the house, and she decides that she wants to say goodbye to hy. She wants to see him one more time. She goes up to his bedroom, and thats where she finds lynnes lingerie. She finds stuff in the bathroom. She gets agitated, upset. She might do some yelling. Hy wakes up and says yes, i am tired and going back to sleep. Shut up. That was not the proper answer. She sits down on the edge of his bed according to her, and she is ready to shoot herself, he grabbed the gun, she gets shot through the hand and that bullet seems to have entered his chest. There is a lot of conflicting evidence about the gunshot. Whether there were three, four, or five. And where the bullets end up. Even during trial the medical experts disagree on some things. It is a little fuzzy about this. The one thing is clear. She didnt just shoot hy once. She didnt shoot herself at all. She shoots him and goes in to he goes to clean up his hand. She feels terrible. She starts cleaning up the bedroom. There is nobody here to say this is not true, but there are other people in the house. Hy is a rich guy. He has staff who live there. The staff live in a different section of the house but they hear the gunshots because lynn sits down. She says there is a struggle over the gun. There does in fact seem to be evidence that she is bruised. She testifies that he hits her in ways that she he had never hit her before. There is no evidence either way that he had hit her prior to this or if he was struggling to pull a gun away but the gun discharges repeatedly into his chest. She recognizes that hy is not in good shape. She later testifies that she only members two shots. One through the hand and a second later. There are at least four, there could be five discharges but there definitely was for holes in hy. Four holes in hy. There were more holes because one was a through and through. She leaves. She says she will go get help. Still not entirely sure why she did not go phone for help or get the livein help. But she has driven five hours and had a horrible weekend. She has just shot her boyfriend of 14 years repeatedly and coming down off the methamphetamines. I guess i can understand that she is not making the best decisions. Wait. She has not made a single good decision all day. Why start now . She has out of the house to get help. In the meantime, the help who lives there has heard the gunshots and called the police. Police are on their way. Somewhere, the Police Arrive and pull in. The stories differ. There seems to be whether or not they chased her or she says she turned around and followed the police and. Regardless, she says she shot him. She says it to a Police Officer who goes in and discovers that he has been shot. Hy dies. Alexander has an interesting theory that i have no idea if it is true but it makes it more dramatic if it is that he would not have died if they got him out of the house sooner. No one realized that one of the bullets had stayed large largest stayed lodged in his body. He did in fact die. The murder trial begins. It is exciting. It is dramatic. When i tell people i am talking about this case, if they are my age or older, they remember this case. Nobody younger seems to remember. But everybody older than me no matter where they were in the country, they remember it. When i told the dean i was doing this class, the first thing she said is i grew up in scarsdale. I totally know the area. And she started talking about the trial. She said i was not there during the actual trial. Everybody remembers this case. Because the tabloids covered it. The regular press covered it. This is a headline from the pacific stars stripes, the pacific is on the other side of the country. They are paying attention. New york times covers it on an almost daily basis, the tabloids have it, new York Magazine has it and it has got everything. To give you an idea of how much coverage there was, i did a search from april 1, 1979 to april 1, 1982 and i found 1000 results for jean harris in the new section. News section. Cover all they sorts of things. Particularly, interestingly, what jean harris wore to the trial every day. Somebody felt it was necessary to report on what she wore. Why . Because it is part of the whole tabloid thing of all of this. This case has everything. It was like begging to be a madefortv movie. Dont worry. A madefortv movie is coming. It has sex, it has unmarried sex which is even more exciting, drugs, it has the trial, it has the other woman, it has got money, it has got wealth, privilege, it has got celebrity. The scarsdale diet doctor is dead. Nobody knows his name but everybody snows the scarsdale diet. This is dramatic. So everybody wants to talk about it. The trial itself, did not go the way it probably shouldve. Whether it is from a legal perspective, or from really anything. This is a quote from a woman who is a mystery writer here in there is a website about women who kill and they asked her to summarize the case and talk about it, and i think her summarization is pretty spot on. She writes, so jean harris was in a seriously embattled position at work. She was addicted to prescription meth and her boyfriend was , dumping her for a twinkie he had on the side. If she just outlined all of that for the jury that the humiliation, the stress, the drugs and followed it by saying very simply, then i lost it and shot him, she wouldve been a free woman in a couple of years. That wasnt the strategy they took in the case at all. Instead, they make some rather odd trial choices. I want us to think about the risks and the rewards of each one. The first one, was the accident defense. That this was a tragic accident. Ok. Let us all put on our reasonable hats and ask ourselves, what the risk of the tragic accident defense might be. Anybody got something . Why is this a problem . Four shots. One more time. Four shots. Why is four shots a problem . Yes, my finger slipped and pulled the trigger one time. And then again, and again, and again. That was a little hard to say. Like i accidentally stabbed you seven times. I fell once in the six times i had a hard time getting up. Accident defense, the risk is it is hard to believe. The reward, wouldve been she is pretty much off the hook. She is not going to do jail time. We will talk about the different degrees of jail time that was optional. That could have been options. This is a weird component as well. This trial lasts for 14 weeks. It goes on and on. Jean harris testified for eight days. Ok. If you are the jury, think about what you might be looking for from jean harris. If you want to acquit her or convict her. What are the characteristics you are paying attention to . Yes . Consistency. Consistency. Tell me about the consistency. What kind of things would you be looking for as a juror . To see if her story is staying the same, minute details is what i would be looking for. That is good. Consistency of the story. What else might you be looking for, if you are in the jury and you have a murder, and alleged murderer in front of you, what are they looking for . Does she look like she would do it . Yeah the appearance which is may be part of the reason they talk about her clothing. Part of the reason, is because she is perceived as a wealthy woman. She is not particularly wealthy but there is a wealthy tinge. And she wears nice clothes. So she looks privileged. Does it look like she could do it . Remember Lizzie Borden . The ladies defense . Ladies dont use axes to kill people. Ladies poison. It is the same kind of argument. Ladies dont shoot lovers. If they are heartbroken, they shoot themselves. Ladies commit suicide, ladies dont commit murder. And you are looking, and the jury is probably looking to see if this is true. Does she look like she could do it . That is a pretty good question that i suspect the jury asked themselves a lot. What they got, was eight days of a little bit crazy. She was, it is about a year, the trial starts in november 1980 and runs for the 14 weeks. It is spring of 1981 when she testifies. And she, it is interesting. The reports are different, different people have different reactions. She appears to have charmed some people. They found her witty. They found her obeying. They found her very sophisticated. They found her to be a lady. On the other hand, she also had to deal with the fact that she had written this letter, the scarsdale letter. It was like this 10 page, 7 to 10 page handwritten letter to hy that she had mailed and got there and killed him so her lawyers picked it up at the post office. It is 7 to 10 pages of crazy. It is clear that she is way on edge. She talks about her stress of the job, she talked of how much she loved hy. Their life together. She goes off on lynn. Over and over calls her names. Calls her a whore and a slut. She lays out all the things she thinks lynn has done to wrong her she has two, answer she has to answer questions about this letter. And she doesnt do a particularly well. Now again if the jury had believed her, great. But since they did not and she gets convicted, this looks like a mistake in retrospect. She had a bunch of psychiatrists who talked to her. One of the defenses she mightve used was something called extreme emotional defense. The idea she acted in that passion of the moment. The heat of the moment. Her lawyer chose not to put on any psychiatric defense. Sean alexander in her biography had a couple of other articles that the time to have put on the psychiatrist wouldve been right after jean harris testified which wouldve said look, she is a perfectly lovely woman who got pushed beyond what she could handle. But he did not do it, her lead attorney sat down and said it was over. To this day, there are questions about why that was the choice of what he said. He said later, that he did not think it was necessary. He thought they had one the physical evidence issued, the bullets in the body proves it was an accident. Clearly the jury did not think so. I dont either quite frankly. He thought that jean harriss presence was enough. Now jeans lawyer, always admired jean harris. In fact when he gave his first press conference, he said she is very much a lady. That was his theme, that she was a lady and ladies dont shoot their lovers. They shoot themselves. And it did not work. There jury deliberated for eight days. That is a fair chunk of time. During those eight days, they kept going back to the judge asking for clarifications of instructions. They kept saying that we think this is a problem. We dont understand this. We would like to know more about intent. We would like to know more about this. And they took their job seriously. And then they unanimously convicted her of murder in the seconddegree. That was the worst possible outcome. We will talk about why it could not be murder one in just a second. The judge sentenced her to 15 years which was the minimum required sentenced to life for her crimes. The judge himself had not forgotten that jean was a lady because he said in the sentencing hearing, that sentencing is never an easy job for any judge, particularly in this case, because it is a woman. I guess he wouldve felt better if i dont know if she had been a man and shot the doctor. That somehow that wouldve worked. Lets talk about these different options. One of the mistakes during the trial, was not giving the jury the option of manslaughter one. The way criminal trials work as you know, is prosecution is going to go for the top thing they can. They are going to ask for the highest level of offense. And then usually, you have all of the what they call lesser secondary included offenses within that level. If murder one is the highest form of murder in new york, you can ask for murder two, manslaughter one, manslaughter two and criminally negligent homicide. Murder one is really not on the table because the elements of murder one, are that you have to have everything that is involved in murder 2 plus circumstances of the identity of the victim, usually that identity of the victim needs to be law enforcement, a judge, some sort of special person in society. Diet doctors, cardiologists dont count. That the commission of the murder, that happened during a felony for example, or the nature of the killing was so egregious, that it rose to the level of murder one. Murder one is not really an option and the prosecution did not try for it. They went for murder 2 which is the intent to cause death and you do in fact cause death. It gives you mandatory jail time. This is what she gets convicted of. So the prosecution was fine with all the lesser included in offenses. The defense, jean harriss lawyer, said to the judge, i dont want the jury to even consider manslaughter one. Take it off the table. This is a roll the dice hoping to get double, this is tough. Double sevens. This is tough. He is saying to the jury, you are either going to send my client to jail for a lot of time, 15 years to life. Or we are not going to send her at all. It is close to an acquittal as we can get if we get manslaughter two or criminal negligence. Sometimes called Involuntary Manslaughter is the reckless cause of someones death. There is no mandatory jail time. Although you can get up to 15 years. Criminally negligent homicide is failing to perceive a substantial or unjustifiable risk, criminally adjustable sorry, criminally negligent homicide would be like if she was sitting on the bed and playing with a gun and it went off. I would fall more under negligent homicide. Involuntary manslaughter, recklessly causing the death. Manslaughter 2, voluntary manslaughter, actually seems like a pretty good option. This is causing death in the heat of passion. That you are under that extreme emotional disturbance. That you are super freaked out. Ok. Hearing what you have heard, we will do a verdict with shove with a show of hands. First of all, raise your hand if you wouldve convicted for murder 2. I am seeing one, two hands. Three hands. Ok. Raise your hand if you wouldve convicted for manslaughter 2. Involuntary manslaughter. Ok, i have four, five, six. Ok, manslaughter 2. Ok, criminally negligent homicide. Anybody willing to convict on that . You can only vote for one. Raise your hand if you wouldve chosen mine manslaughter one. Manslaughter one wins. But it was not an option. It was not on the table. It was a huge gamble by her lawyer, and he lost. And when he loses, the stories just go on. The post media trial is insane. So in 1981 and 82, there are two different biographies that come out, very much a lady by sean alexander, diana, mrs. Harris, i started that one it was a slower read so i did not finish it. The madefortv movie came out within weeks of the verdict. They took the trial transcripts and they wrote it as the trial was going along and then they started filming before the trial even ended. In 2005 there was a remake of the madefortv movie, which is now available. Now available. Jean harris herself wrote some books. She wrote one in prison called stranger into worlds about her life in prison. And her life before and she talks about the trial. She had filed a lawsuit about that trial. Sorry, about that book because in the 1980s, people who were in prison for crimes, could not profit off their crimes via book. Anything you got for writing your book had to go into a fund, for the victims who filed lawsuits against you, called the son of sam law. Somebody in here wrote about the son of sam in one of their papers. He was a serial killer and he profit off their crimes via tried to write a book and new york did not want him to make profit. Jean harris had proceeds thatjet went into a trust for the victims family, victims family said we dont want the money, jean harris said i dont want the money either. I actually want it to go to this program i am working on, while jean harris was in prison she started working with pregnant women in prison, to help them become better mothers and she had convinced her prison to start basically this child center so that if your mother gave birth to you while she was in jail you could live in the center for the first year of your life and she could see you every day. The idea is it was supposed to promote motherdaughter bonding and she wanted the money to support that. She lost her lawsuit but eventually the law went all the way to the u. S. Supreme court and in 1991 the Supreme Court ruled the son of sam law was overbroad and all of the proceeds sitting in the trust went to her center for kids. She later wrote another book about her life in prison and she called it they always called us ladies, stories from prison. And so everybody profits off of this, but jean harris sits in jail for a long time. She is not thrilled with being in jail so what do you do when you are not happy with being in jail . You appeal. That is what she did. First appeal comes right away. She asked to have the verdict dismissed and that was denied. They rejected the claim, her claim that the pretrial publicity had made it impossible for her to get a fair trial, in part because she and her lawyers never asked for a change of venue. They said that the prosecutor was not unfair in crossexamining her. Basically her appeals lawyer said they were mean to her, she was like no. Harris said the prosecutor was particularly mean because he called her a liar when harris herself had denounced many other witnesses as liars and they said basically any errors that occurred during the trial were harmless. Then in 1982, she got upheld but she had argued that the court should have used the different standard, that did not work. But 1992, she tries again at the federal level. She says the court was, that her trial was incompetent. Sorry, her lawyer at her trial was incompetent. That he shouldve overruled her and used the manslaughter 1 and that he should have told her not to testify. The court said that it was a tactical decision and it was no violation of her sixth amendment right of counsel. So jean harris is in jail. She tries, she does some good work. There were interviews when she died with women in the prison that she had worked with who had very nice things to say. While she was in prison her sons are still out there. They are trying the whole appeal thing and that is not working at all. Now they are trying an emotional appeal. For years, they asked the different men who were the new york state governors for clemency which means to end her sentence and send her home. In 1993, it finally works. Mario cuomo is governor, father of the guy who is currently governor. He releases her three years prior to the end of her sentence. She goes away, and the world pays attention, these are clips from different newspapers. And the tabloids go crazy again. And she uses her notoriety, to raise more money for that center for kids and now she starts a Scholarship Fund for kids whose parents go to prison. So she does some really good things, and she lives a pretty quiet happy life. After she gets released and she dies in 2012. Lets switch gears, and talk a little bit about the trials of Lizzie Borden and jean harris and how they are similar and how they are different. Ok, you have had you know about an hour to think about this. What are some of the similarities that you see . Yes . Used thethe defense appearance of ladylike tendencies in both cases. Prof. Fields yes, ladies do not kill this way. What else . What other similarities are there . That is a really big one. But there are some differences. I guess let me take this back. There are a couple other similarities. Yes . Student they both came from families that were pretty well off, but not too rich. Prof. Fields yeah. They come from wealth. That gives them a little bit more defense attorney power. Although Lizzie Bordens defense attorney was way better. Not just because she got acquitted, but also because she invested, there was somehow more money invested in lizzie, she has the three attorneys, one who will later become governor. One is an attorney general. Shes got all that going for her. Yes . Student both of them were on drugs. Prof. Fields theoretically. We do not know for sure if Lizzie Borden was. Unfortunately we do know that jean harris was not at the time of the murder. Maybe if she had stayed on the methamphetamines. Drugs play a role in all of this. Both of these women are different than other women of their era. They are not married. Jean harris is divorced and she has a longterm relationship with another man. Today, that is not that big a deal. In 1980, it was a big deal. Especially for a white woman of privilege to not be married. Lizzie borden remained single and lives in that we are set up in that weird set up in the house with her parents, that is just weird and creepy. In both cases we have the weirdness of sex. Jean harris has a paramore and nobody knows what to do, why is Lizzie Borden not married . We have that leaking in. All of the social status has a kind of similarity. But the trials themselves are different. Even though both attorneys use lady defense. What is the biggest difference between the two trials . Yes . Student the verdict. Prof. Fields the verdict. Is a really big one. Lizzie borden walks away. And jean harris does not. There is actually one other thing they have in common but totally trivial. I find it hysterical. They both loved dogs. Remember what Lizzie Borden does with all of that money she inherits . She says of the Animal Sanctuary when she dies. Jean harris always has a dog. If you go back to photos, i have a whole bunch of photos with her with dogs because she loved dogs. She always has dogs. She feels very strongly about them. Now this is a similarity and a difference. The jury instructions. Wonky in both cases. Jean harris, they leave off manslaughter 2. What was the weirdness in Lizzie Borden . Anybody remember . Student pushed them to say not guilty. Prof. Fields yeah. Because of the emphasis on the circumstantial evidence. The judge guided the Lizzie Borden trial to the outcome. That doesnt happen for jean harris. Her own lawyer makes i would argue a stupid decision, and takes her best option off the table. So we have got that element of similarity and differences. Jean harris does not get the same homecourt advantage with a prominent defense team. Lizzie bordens trial is her defense team is better, not the least of which because she wins. They both kind of are hauntingly similar in weird ways. Because they are wealthy women of means, who everybody thinks has committed a crime. One of whom gets away with it, the other of whom does not. One of whom, we remember, the other of whom we dont. Which leads me to my last slide, the last part of this conversation. What makes a trial . The trial of the century . What makes a crime memorable . Why do we think, why do you guys know who Lizzie Borden is . Student because of the rhyme. Prof. Fields the rhyme, that helps. Lizzie borden took an axe, gave her father 40 whacks. There is no good jean harris rhyme. Self, if you ever want to get some criminal famous think of some cool little nursery rhyme that we can have forever. That helps a lot. Especially if you can put it to a song. Now you have a catchy jingle and you are good. What else . There is a really big difference between Lizzie Bordens murder, alleged murder and jean harriss murder. What is the mechanism . How did Lizzie Bordens parents die . Student an axe. Prof. Fields an axe. It is gory. It is bloody. There is a lot of, it is a freaking axe. This is a big deal. A gunshot, it is tragic, somebody dies but we have a lot of gun violence in this country. We dont have many ax murders. Does that play a role in what we remember . The more gory the murder, does that help . If youre looking for a good gory crime . Student it doesnt hurt. Prof. Fields it does not hurt at all. Student another thing would probably be impact that the ruling has on society as a whole, so Lizzie Borden was the first time where they were shifting away from using stereotypes to convict, whereas this trial, there werent as many stereotypes, involved because she had already admitted to killing, so the implications that the ruling had, it seemed on society was a lot more significant than Lizzie Bordens case. Prof. Fields yeah. Lizzie borden gets acquitted because of those stereotypes. They work in her favor. Jean harris, the stereotypes are present but they are not helping her. The jury does not acquit her because of those. In fact, if anything she is looked like she didnt use her privilege in the right way. Yeah . Student i think there is the role of mystery and alert. And allure. With the lizzie burden case, people are still arguing whether or not she did it looking at every little piece of evidence with the o. J. Trial as well. In this one we know for sure that she was holding a gun and it went off, we just do not know if she had intent or not. It kind of pulls away from the mystery of the case. Prof. Fields that is an outstanding point. I think the mystery matters. We can argue and debate, did Lizzie Borden do it or not . There is no debate over jean harris. She pulled the trigger. We do not know the motive. But that is not the same kind of fun argument, did she mean to do it, did she not mean to do it . It is not nearly as much fun as thinking about whether she did it at all. I think that adds to the kind of cultural alert, you made the reference to o. J. Simpson, did he do it, did he not do it . Because there are questions still, and we might all have our own passionate opinion, but it is not fact. The fact is, jean harris pulled the trigger. And that might change in the cultural memory as well. At the time, it was exciting and it was dramatic, it had all of these narrative elements, but we kind of knew the ending. She pulled the trigger. Hy died. We did not know the why, that is not as exciting of the question, if you think about all of the murder mysteries ever written, not a whole lot of them tell you upfront who did it and then figure out the motive. There is at least one tv series that does. And a couple of books but most of them the mystery is whodunit. They are called whodunits for a reason. It also helps to bring it back over and over as a movie. Remember when we did Lizzie Borden and we saw the four or five different movies about her, there are about 2 about jean harris. Raise your hands if you have ever seen the jean harris movies. Yep. Now you have something to do this weekend. Lizzie bordens movies are more constant. Every few years, one comes out. I think that between ax murderer, not knowing for sure who does it, those kinds of things, the whodunit element helps keep it a mystery, more of a mystery and it keeps it alive in american society. Thank you all, have a lovely afternoon. And a good weekend. I will see you tuesday. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] announcer listen to lectures in history on the go by streaming our podcast anywhere, anytime. Youre watching American History tv, only on cspan3. The house will be in order. Announcer for 40 years, cspan has been providing america unfiltered coverage of congress, the light, the Supreme Court, and Public Policy events from washington, d. C. And around the country so you can make up your own mind, created by cable in 1979. Cspan is brought to you by your local or cable satellite provider. Cspan, your unfiltered view of government. This past thursday, the u. S. House passed a resolution laying out the next steps in the impeachment investigation of president trump. 2321 96, mostly along party lines. Next, on American History tv, we look back to october 1998 when the house debated whether to begin an impeachment investigation of president clinton. At the time, the house was controlled by republicans. In this 50 minute portion of the debate, we will hear from members on both sides. At the end of the day, 31 democrats joined all of the republicans in the vote to begin the impeachment inquiry into president