by Kip Gayden
Christian wasn’t sure if the minister thought he was helping or hurting Anna. The minister’s account made it sound as if she’d been given every chance to reconsider the wisdom of her thinking.
“Through most of our meeting, Mrs. Dotson sat on the floor with her head on a chair. She asked me if she had the right to kill Mr. Cobb and I told her that should the man come back, invade her home and attempt to renew the old relations, then she had the right to kill him, but under no other circumstances.
“She then arose from the floor, and went and got a pistol. I’ll never forget this. She pointed it at the chair as though she were seeing something. Then she laughed queerly and pointed the gun at herself. I managed to wrench the weapon away from her grasp. I tried to calm her, to convince her that Jephtha’s vow was a rash one. I wanted her to promise not to carry out her intentions, but she would not promise to break the vow she had made to God.”
Attorney General Anderson did his best to discredit Olmstead. He shot question after question at him in quick succession, attacking him as “a preacher of the gospel sanctioning the killing of Cobb by this woman.” Mr. Olmstead responded to most with skill, but several seemed to hit a nerve and riled him.
The next morning, the defense put Anna’s sister, Flora Lambert, on the stand, followed by her brother, Robert Dennis. Both said they had always known Anna to be a sincere, energetic person, but never violent in any way—until she got mixed up with Charlie Cobb. Robert’s testimony was especially poignant; several times, he wept openly, describing the difference in his sister’s demeanor after she met Cobb. “When I found out what was going on, I could hardly believe it,” he said. “Anna was like a different person. She was despondent, listless. She ate little or nothing.”
The final witness for the defense was Anna’s father. He told about her life as a child at their home in Lafayette, that she was always “pleasant and sunny of countenance.”
“We taught all our children the Bible from the time they were old enough to listen,” the minister said. “When her brother Bobby first told me of her difficulties, I was devastated. I was planning to take her to Texas, to my brother’s home, when . . . all this happened.”
Christian surmised the defense was doing its best to counter the prosecution’s portrayal of Anna as a selfish, calculating, coldhearted murderer. From the faces of the jury, he wasn’t sure the testimony was having enough of the desired effect.
At 4:10 on Saturday afternoon, the defense rested its case. The state then asked for a recess, and returned in a few minutes to announce that they would not offer any rebuttal to the defense. Apparently, they’d decided the faces of the jury indicated their readiness to begin deliberation. The prosecution calculated the jury had heard enough and was ready to convict. The court was adjourned until nine o’clock the following Monday, when the state would commence its closing arguments. Christian looked at Anna Dotson and her husband and children; this would probably be one of the longest weekends of their lives.
ON MONDAY MORNING, Assistant Attorney General Moore was the first to speak to the jury. He asked the jurors to “seek out evidence and act fearlessly on it. Forget categories of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ and deal out justice based on truth.”
“Gentlemen of the jury, you must decide whether the defendant was a lunatic or whether she was engaged in adultery that was mutual, happy, and joyous.” He argued, “It is human nature for conscience to smite a young, intelligent, refined, virtuous wife upon the first occasion that she transgressed and committed adultery. But consider: would she not have been more apt to have gone crazy after her first act of illicit relations with Cobb than after weeks and months of intimacy with her lover?” He added, “A woman of learning with children cannot be seduced.”
Upon hearing these words, Christian glanced up at the balcony. It appeared that the women with the yellow sashes were displeased by such a sweeping characterization.
Next, Attorney General Anderson took up the attack. “Note, gentlemen, that Anna Dotson did not voluntarily confess until after her husband had questioned her with increasing intensity, even resorting to threats of driving her away from home. He asserted that Anna should have seen through Charlie Cobb’s intentions much earlier. Any decent woman would have kicked him out for making such advances.”
Curiously, Anderson made a vigorous attack on Dr. Dotson, charging him with conniving with his wife in writing the letters to Cobb, mailed with the intention of luring Cobb back to Gallatin in order that Anna might kill him. Christian thought the prosecution was overreaching with this line of reasoning. He couldn’t help noticing that Anna was shaking her head after he made this statement. The jury noticed it, too.
The chief prosecutor went on. “And what about this husband, giving his poor, supposedly deranged wife a piece of paper with the Jackson’s Barbershop address on it, when he knew she had vowed to kill him? He ought to be thankful that the law forbids a wife from testifying against her husband.”
The attorney general next addressed the insanity plea. “Gentlemen of the jury, the defense has presented few facts and an abundance of invention and theory.” He pointed out that if Anna Dotson were delusional, “she would have killed him on Friday, without regard for the presence of her little boy. Instead, like a truly calculating murderer, she awaited her better chance, the next day.”
He concluded by telling the jury that Cobb had been the instrument, not the cause, of Anna’s lust. “The time has come when there must be a stop put to this business of women going around and shooting down men just because their dresses are wrapped around their legs. Do not be influenced by pity.” There was another rustling in the balcony when he said this.
After Attorney General Anderson sat down, the lawyer named Murray, hired by the Cobb family to help with the prosecution, argued, “Charlie Cobb was welcomed with open bosom by Anna Dotson. She was not some helpless, weak-willed damsel. No, gentlemen, she sought out opportunity to be with Charlie Cobb; she was his willing accomplice in the illicit relationship.” Murray scorned Anna for holding the vow to kill as being “more sacred than her marriage vows.” He looked at each juror as he spoke.
“This murder was premeditated, with malice aforethought. Anna Dotson, who had betrayed not only her husband, but also her friend Daisy Cobb, decided she simply had no more use for Charlie Cobb. Remember what she said to the officers of the peace at the scene of her crime? ‘Is that thing dead?’ Those were her very words, gentlemen! There is only one answer to such coldhearted violence and immorality. You, the jury, should convict her for first-degree murder. Indeed,” he said, moving back toward the prosecution table and pointing at Anna as he went, “hanging is too good for her!”
Judge Neil looked at the defense. “Mr. Anderson, is the defense ready to present its closing arguments?”
There was a long pause, and Christian actually wondered if Anderson was going to pull a white handkerchief from his pocket and wave it above his head. Finally, though, he stood slowly and said, “Yes, your Honor.”
He walked around the end of the defense table like a man going to the wall in front of a firing squad. He paced deliberately toward the jury box. Every eye in the courtroom followed him until little Scott clambered over the railing and crawled into his mother’s lap. The old defense attorney, hearing the commotion behind him, turned and watched with everyone else as Anna stroked her son’s head and hugged him close. As Anderson turned away from those seated in the courtroom to face the jury, it was easy to imagine his expression: Look at this child. Look at this mother.
“Gentlemen of the jury,” he said in a slow, heavy voice, “consider the little bird that hovers over the serpent, mesmerized by its eyes until, having chanced too near, it is consumed with one snap of the fanged jaws. That little bird cannot tell you why it is so held by fatal fascination. No more can my client, the mother whom you now see comforting her innocent child, tell you what it was about Charlie Cobb that rendered her so susceptible to his illicit charms.
; “Can you truly not imagine what she might do to protect her own? Recall how many times she spoke of her remorse, when she was finally, despite the fog of her delusion, able to realize what she had done to her home in her sin with Charlie Cobb. Think of her husband, gentlemen. Think of your own wives! Which of you, hearing a confession similar to that which Walter Dotson experienced, would not want the same thing he wanted, would not want to kill the man who had participated with your spouse in such infamy? And yet, what did she tell him? ‘Don’t do it! Think of your children!’ This poor woman, who had already despaired of her own life in her shame and confusion, was trying to prevent yet another tragedy, one that would rob that little boy, along with his sister, of a father. She was trying to protect her husband in the only way she knew!”
By now, sobs were easily audible, not only from Anna, Walter, and their children, but also from the audience. It was a masterful performance from the veteran lawyer. He seemed to gather himself as he went, seemed to draw strength from the emotion in the courtroom. The jury watched him, seemingly as entranced as the little bird with which he had begun his remarks.
“Was it the right thing to do? Was it the wise thing? The sane, reasoned thing? Of course not, gentlemen! Anna Dotson, quite simply, was driven beyond the edge of reason by her own guilt, by her fear for her husband, by her anxiety for her children’s future. And in that extremity, that singleness of mind, that obsession, that monomania, to use the respected Doctor Stephens’ word . . . she did the only thing she could think of. She took some words from a terrible, bloody old story out of the Old Testament, and she clung to them, and with nothing in her mind but ending her troubles the only way she could imagine, she carried a gun into Jackson’s Barbershop and shot the man who represented danger to everything she held dear.
“Charlie Cobb held a terrible fascination for this woman, and he used it to his own ends. Well, he paid the ultimate price for his folly. But now, gentlemen, will you spread the carnage further? Will you condemn not only Anna Dotson, but also her children, whom she did such awful things to protect? Think of that little boy there, peering through prison bars at his mother, dressed in the drab clothing of the penitentiary. Think of that little girl, probably the same age as some of your daughters or granddaughters, placing flowers on the grave of a mother who died at the end of a rope.
“Will you put that rope around her neck, gentlemen? I pray that you will not. I pray, instead, that you will look into your own hearts, and find my client not guilty by reason of insanity.”
39
Judge neil ordered a recess of fifteen minutes before taking up the delivery of his charge to the jury. It was four o’clock on Monday. When the judge reentered, the courtroom was filled to its capacity; people were even standing along the walls at the back.
The judge looked at the twelve men in the jury box. “You are about to deliberate upon the evidence that has been presented to you. In your deliberations, you must first determine whether Anna Dotson was insane at the time of the killing. If you find the defendant insane then you must stop any further deliberation and report back to the court. If you find the defendant not guilty by reason of insanity, the defendant will be immediately committed to the Tennessee State Asylum for the Insane, where she will be held and treated for an indefinite period of time, to be released only after a determination by this court that she has regained her sanity.
“If you find Anna Dotson to have been sane at the time of the killing of Charlie Cobb then you, the jury, must decide whether she is guilty of murder in the first degree. Such a finding of guilt would impose an obligation upon the jury to then determine her sentence—in this case, either life imprisonment or death by hanging.”
When Judge Neil finished his charge, the jury was excused to discuss whether they wanted to go back to the Hermitage Hotel, where they were being sequestered, in order to get a good night’s rest before returning at nine the following morning, or immediately begin deliberations. When the jury filed out of the courtroom, most of the spectators left the courthouse, assuming that the jury would surely opt to go back to the hotel.
Only a few minutes later, though, the jury came back into the courtroom. The foreman, a man named Smith, said, “Your Honor, we have decided to deliberate in the courthouse until a verdict is reached.”
The judge looked a little surprised. He announced to those who remained in the courtroom, “If the jury reaches a verdict, it will not be announced until tomorrow morning at nine.” With these words, the courtroom emptied of its few remaining spectators, led by Christian’s fellow newspapermen, rushing to get their stories filed.
When jury foreman Smith made his announcement, Christian saw guarded smiles on the faces of the prosecution. Christian could tell what the attorney general and his team were thinking: the jury sensed a quick verdict among themselves.
As midnight approached without the jury having returned a verdict, Christian started to question his earlier assumption. He realized he was wrung out; he left the courtroom and went over to the press office in the police station to get a little sleep.
Unfortunately, though, his mind wasn’t ready to turn loose of the case. He tossed and turned on the narrow cot, snatches of testimony running through his head. He mulled over the discrepancies between Anna’s nightgown testimony and the account of the shooting presented by her neighbor; he thought about the inaccuracies regarding her relationship with her husband as she had presented it to the jury; he thought about what he had begun to view as Anna’s other “little white lies” to the jury, realizing that he had already forgiven her for the untruths, since each was intended to protect her husband and children. Though Christian understood her motivation, he feared that the prosecution—and Anna’s own admissions—had already dug her grave. And then, he realized with a bit of a start that somewhere along the line, he had actually started rooting for Anna, hoping for her to escape the fate that seemed all too certain.
About four o’clock in the morning, Christian got up from the cot and walked through the dark streets to the courthouse to see if the jury had finished its deliberation. He was stunned to find that they were still in their conference room, still trying to make their decision.
The bailiff was propped up in a chair outside the jury room, dozing with his arms across his belly. Christian touched him on the shoulder and his eyes fluttered open. He yawned and told him that Judge Neil was in his chambers, sleeping on a couch. Christian thought about trying to talk to the judge, but decided instead to go back to his office and attempt at least a catnap.
When sunrise started creeping through the police station’s windows, Christian got up and went back to the courthouse. Later, around eight o’clock, the court officer found him and said, “Judge Neil would like to see you.”
Christian entered and the judge invited him to sit down. They made small talk for a few minutes, but eventually got around to the case at hand.
Christian asked, “What do you think the jury will do?” He really didn’t expect Neil to answer; he never had before when asked the same question in other trials. Really, Christian was just trying to make conversation.
To the reporter’s surprise, he said, “Christian, there is one thing I have learned the hard way: You usually cannot predict a jury. I think they’re having a difficult time deciding to hang a woman. Besides, I think maybe your testimony got her the life sentence. I think you like the woman, and you let the jury know it.”
Christian shrugged. “Sorry, your Honor.”
He made a dismissing motion. “I think the decisive question is whether the defendant was not guilty by reason of insanity. This monomania business is the first thing they’ve got to tackle. If they find the defendant sane at the time of the killing, then there’s not much way around them finding her guilty of premeditated murder, and once they do that—and you know better than anyone, the defendant admitted to it—they’ll just about have to impose a severe penalty: death by hanging or life imprisonment.” He paused a moment, staring ou
t the window. “If I were on the jury, I would have to seriously consider first-degree murder with life imprisonment.”
“Do you not think this is an appropriate situation for the death penalty?”
Another long pause. “I personally think the death penalty would be too harsh under the circumstances. But it really doesn’t matter what we think, Christian, does it?” the judge said, looking at him. “It is solely the decision of the jury . . . not me, not you.”
He looked out his window another long time. “Christian, if I were a betting man, I would bet the jury will impose a life sentence.”
BY NOON ON THAT TUESDAY, the courtroom was as hot as Hades. Nashville was sweltering in ninety-degree June weather; the three large fans attached to the courtroom’s fifteen-foot ceiling did little but stir the stifling air. Despite the stifling heat, the spectator section and the gallery were filled to capacity. Incredibly, the jury had deliberated all night and was now into its twentieth straight hour.
People actually waited in line at the courthouse door, starting before sunrise. It was powerfully fascinating, this case of the People of Tennessee v. Anna Dotson, and the whole population of Nashville was under the sway of the unfolding drama. They wanted to be there to see firsthand what would happen.
Christian sat in his front-row seat and tugged at his collar, feeling like a wrung-out dishrag. The courtroom was aflutter with the cheap paper fans sold by the hucksters along the sidewalk; Anna Dotson’s trial was turning into a commercial event, as well as a legal one. Though it was miserable inside, the people in the courtroom probably considered themselves lucky; plenty of other would-be spectators were turned away at the door by the court officers, once the seats were filled.