Election Anxiety: Bat Shea & The Murder of Robert Ross

Immediately following Troy’s March 6, 1894 election riot in the 13th Ward, the question on everyone’s lips was “Who killed Robert Ross?” After interviewing 50 of the 100 witnesses at the scene of the violence, Superintendent of Police William W. Willard offered his gut reaction to the press.

“To a greater or lesser degree everyone [was responsible] who was engaged in the fight during which the crime was committed” according to the The Albany Argus of March 12, 1894. That opinion was not repeated at the March 15th inquest or the May 28th murder trial, although it did resurface before Bat Shea was strapped into the electric chair.

While election violence is not a frequent occurrence in the US, it has popped up during times of religious or racial tension. Absent Protestant-Catholic conflict, this Troy riot would probably not have taken place. According to the Public Religion Research Institute, 80% of Americans today think election violence is likely to erupt again, with our long-held tradition of passing power peacefully now in serious jeopardy.

The mug shots above show the three who were arraigned and charged with the murder of Robert Ross. All three packed concealed weapons which came out and were discharged when the riot erupted, and they were the closest to Ross when he was fatally wounded.

Bat Shea and John McGough were seriously wounded in the melee, as well as Robert’s brother William. A fourth man, Ellias Haynor, was arraigned on a felony charge for carrying a deadly weapon, a large industrial wrench, which was alleged to have touched off the riot.

The Ross brothers were part of Troy’s wealthy Protestant majority, there at the Orr Street polling place as election watchers hoping to see their Republican candidate installed as Alderman in Troy’s 3rd District.

Shea and McGough were political operatives for Troy’s Democratic party, there to try to elect their own candidate in a tight race. As part of the Catholic working-class minority, Protestants feared the pair were “repeat voting,” a suspicion which had surfaced in a pre-election Caucus.

Boland was a friend of the Ross family and a local leader of the Republican Party.

Tension between these two groups was so high — and their respective political parties “at white heat” — that the trial did not wait for jury selection. It immediately spilled out onto the street and into the press. Fellow firefighters of Ross were barely dissuaded from taking vigilante action against the two Catholics they blamed for the murder, Shea and McGough.

My great-grandfather John Sherry and business partner Norman B. Squires, wealthy Protestant businessmen, were present at mass meetings in Troy’s two largest churches two days later to name “a Committee of 100 for Public Safety” to fight the “Democratic political machine” of “Boss” Edward Murphy with his “hordes of illiterate, cheap, and crafty officials who had become lodged in the various branches of city government” — these words penned by Troy Record Reporter Frank Sherry, who was my uncle, in 1966.

Declaring Ross to be a “martyr,” the Committee of 100 demanded speedy justice, drafting a bill “to fire the whole police force, top to bottom.” In emotional addresses by Protestant pastors and town officials, Shea and McGough were named as the key suspects in the murder.

Frank Black – successful bank and commercial lawyer, Troy’s most prominent Republican, and legal counsel for the Committee of 100, orchestrated interviews with eyewitnesses before the inquest and trial to “fix Shea’s guilt.”

Novelist Jack Casey, author of The Trial of Bat Shea, discovered in his research that Black was also president of the Troy chapter of American Protective Association — a secretive organization characterized by viral anti-immigrant, anti-Irish, and anti-Catholic hate. Black used this tragedy as leverage propelling him into political office, including New York State’s 32nd governorship (1897 to 1898).

The Committee of 100 was certainly behind the New York Times article published just two days after the murder, implicating Murphy underlings, Shea and McGough:

“The gun that shot Robert Ross has been loaded on election day in Troy ever since ‘Boss’ Murphy’s gang began their systematic frauds, a dozen years ago … The first show of effort to resist the criminal proceedings brought the blow. The men who carry elections for ‘Boss’ Murphy allow nothing to stop them. Murder, if necessary, is a part of the system.”

The Albany Argus quickly countered this reckless public charge, arguing that the higher-ups who used Shea, McGough, and the Ross boys in their schemes “should be wearing stripes before April”:

“The blood of Ross, of Troy, is on the head of these criminally negligent Republicans. Mr. [William] Sulzer and other Democrats have introduced bills to reform the election laws and to prevent fraud. The Republicans of the legislature have stifled them. Honest partisanship is united in support of honest elections, but such partisanship is not the politics of the majority in the legislature. They try to use a murder for political purposes. They seek to encourage riot to partisan advantage.”

The Inquest That Turned into a Criminal Trial

Distrust in government was at such a high pitch and emotions so raw over the murder, that Governor Roswell P. Flower appointed two noted Republican lawyers as “Deputy Attorney Generals” to help Democrat Assistant DA Thomas Fagan cross-examine the 50 witnesses called to testify in the March 14-21 ienquest. And that was not the only odd feature about this inquest, a legal event intended to establish a cause of death with proof of guilt left up to a grand jury in a subsequent trial.

Under any other circumstance Frank Black’s pre-inquest grilling of a half dozen 13th Ward witnesses in his Troy office would have disqualified him from any official role in the proceedings.

Another serious issue in Black’s approach was that accusing specific individuals of crime is the function of the grand jury, not the inquest.

The inquest opened to a packed courthouse and a large heavy package dropped by an officer on the assistant DA’s desk, revealing revolvers, six slung shot, and a stack of Billy clubs collected at a dump site near the polling place. A slung shot is a dangerous weapons made of a weighted object affixed to the end of a long cord to be used as a bludgeon.

The first of five medical doctors testifying was Dr. E. D. Ferguson who conducted the autopsy, describing the bullet that killed Ross penetrating “inward, forward and upward” and four pieces of lead were entered as evidence. A second doctor found no evidence the fatal gunshot was fired at close range. The other doctors testified on the non-fatal injuries.

A firearms expert revealed that the fatal shot was fired from a 32-caliber rimfire revolver, as opposed to a centerfire gun which discharges when the midpoint of the cartridge is struck. While Boland’s revolver was centerfire, testimony on gun usage was not credible. Bat Shea insisted he did not possess a gun, while Boland claimed he loaded his gun with blank bullets.

The reality was this: At least 20 rioters carried revolvers to the polls with multiple shots discharged in just a few minutes. The three charged with the murder all carried and fired live rounds from their guns. The mob action was so quick and complex that a city engineer and a land surveyor had to draw up a diagram of the polling place and adjacent streets, trying to explain the chaos to the jury. The shot that killed Ross could have come from anyone with a rimfire revolver.

What turned the tide for the jury was a parade of witnesses who claimed they saw the guy with the green necktie, common for Irish-Americans, fire the fatal shot. It turned out many of the voters that day were wearing ties, and Shea and his friend McGough did sport green neckties.

When these witnesses were asked if they had visited Black’s office to tell what they saw, they all answered in the affirmative. This fact led to a suspicion that “[these] witnesses were drilled for the witness stand,” a charge which became a key part of the defense strategy in the upcoming trial. Another question repeated at the inquest and trial was this: “Are you a member of the A.P.A. [American Protective Association]?” The Ross brothers stated they were not but most of these witnesses were.

While the Ross brothers’ testimonies did have inconsistencies, John Ross’s tearful account of the February 12th Caucus where trouble started, and then the riot scene where his brother died, clearly moved the jury. He said that Shea fired at Rob Ross, causing him to stumble and fall, then as Rob attempted to get up, and then claimed “Shea placed the revolver at his head and fired, as near as I could tell.”

Adam Ross corroborated hiss brother John’s testimony. William Ross identified a Shea associate Jerry Cleary as the shooter, but would later change his testimony at the trial to claim it had been Shea, not Cleary.

Examiners tried to clarify the number of shots fired, their proximity to Ross, and the exact identity of the shooter. Importantly, the firearms expert who was called to the stand ruled out a point-blank shot to Ross’s head.

A flurry of action after the inquest was officially closed by the Coroner reinforced the odd nature of this legal proceeding. Three witnesses had testified that they had seen Boland fire a shot in the direction of Ross when he fell to the ground, all of them Shea associates.

One of these was Michael Delaney, whom it was alleged had told a Republican operative that he was not at the scene of the crime. That led to a fierce argument over who would swear out a warrant for his arrest on the charge of perjury or false testimony, the Sheriff refused. When a warrant was finally obtained, Delaney was held on $10,000 bail.

What stands out here is that Republican testimony by Ross and friends was assumed to be credible, because they were “good citizens,” while Democratic witnesses on Shea’s side, perceived to be of questionable character, were discounted.

In the middle of this wrangling, the Jury foreman emerged and read the verdict to a packed courtroom of over a thousand people. It was unanimous: Shea killed Robert Ross! His guilt was beyond the shadow of a doubt. Courtroom attendees jumped to their feet and cheered.

The warrant for Shea’s arrest on first degree murder charges was not disputed and the next step was a Grand Jury and trial. McGough continued to be held in jail awaiting a later trial on charges of shooting and wounding William Ross. Boland’s release from prison was announced to loud cheering, followed by a parade through the 13th Ward with crowds cheering and flags waving. Politics and nativism clearly eclipsed justice.

Governor Pressured to Call an “Extraordinary” Session of the Grand Jury

Political pressure only intensified after the outcome of the inquest. Normally a murder trial midway through the court calendar would have been scheduled in the fall. Shea’s defense team of Galen Hitt and John T. Norton outlined in their opening statement a trial timeline that put them at a distinct disadvantage.

After the inquest ended on March 28th, Bat Shea’s indictment was delayed to May 23rd and the trial began on May 28th. That left only seven days to prepare a defense.

Furthermore, the Hitt defense team complained that the Committee of 100 had lobbied the Governor for an extra or extraordinary term of the Rensselaer County Circuit Court. It was “extraordinary,” because it was added to Rensselaer County’s civil court schedule on the same day of the week, the Governor bowing to the intense pressure.

Essentially, that extra session was scheduled a month before the formal charge of murder had even been brought against Shea, depriving him of his constitutional rights for that time frame. Or so his defense team argued.

In addition, under the direction of Attorney Black, the Committee of 100 mailed out a circular instructing all members of the jury pool what their civic responsibility was for the Shea murder trial.

That stunt was called out by Hitt in his closing statement as an unprecedented act clearly crossing all legal and ethical lines. The Committee defended its action on an unproved claim that the Murphy political machine controlled Troy police, courts, and other arms of government. On that presumption, it was claimed, they could even “fix a jury.”

The bottom line for the Hitt defense team was that they were not just up against what they felt was a trumped-up murder charge, but they were fighting against a powerful group of citizens with a hidden agenda.

As part of their opening statement, Hitt described this Committee of “good citizens” as “a large, powerful organization of influential men, whose determination was to make an example of this defendant [Shea] and to punish this young man for their own purposes.”

The trial kicked-off to a packed courthouse in Troy, Justice Pardon C. Williams of Watertown, NY, called in to preside over the “extraordinary term.” George Raines helped Assistant DA Fagan in the prosecution of Shea.

A jury of 12 – eleven farmers and one carpenter — was seated to hear the 30 witnesses called to the stand during the 36-day trial, two whole weeks taken up selecting the jury. The trial concluded on July 3rd and Shea was sentenced on July 10th. The trial transcript ran to just over 2,000 pages, the Albany Argus printing a daily recap that gave readers a sense of the proceedings.

Justice Williams’ July 2nd charge to the jury was printed verbatim for Argus readers, helping them navigate tricky legal questions covered by the Code of Criminal Procedure.

The inquest verdict claimed it answered the key question, “Who killed Robert Ross?” That jury presumed it was Shea who caused the death of Robert Ross.

This jury of twelve had to begin with one of the most important principles of criminal law:

“In ordinary civil eases the prosecution has only to have the preponderance of evidence; but in a criminal case this does not apply; the prosecution must show beyond a reasonable doubt; the facts alleged upon the part of the prosecution must be so proved that the jury may believe them beyond a reasonable doubt.”

With that in mind, the jury had to deliberate on one of three charges for the Ross murder: (a) manslaughter, if Shea shot his gun in self-defense or to protect his friend McGough; (b) murder in the 2nd degree, if Shea intended to kill Ross, but did it in the spur of the moment or the chaos of the riot; or (c) murder in the 1st degree, if Shea’s plan was to kill, and he did it with deliberation and premeditation.

The Trial Verdict: Murder in the First Degree

The prosecution’s strategy was multi-pronged. The March 28th inquest did declare that Shea fired the fatal shot, but others were named as possible shooters and there were certainly inconsistencies in the record of testimony.

Robert Ross’s brothers John and Adam said they saw Shea (or a man with a green necktie) do it, but William thought he saw a Shea associate pull the trigger. The question of political influence was suspected and raised in that earlier trial, spurred by a flurry of press claims, many sensational.

Attorney Raines began the prosecution with a very dubious witness, trying to establish a first-degree charge. Mrs. Harriet Titus, related to Boland through marriage, claimed she overheard a conspiracy for murder while waiting for her husband to vote. He was standing in line on Orr Street while she lingered four blocks away near Reedy’s Barn on North 4th Street. The Argus reported that in her testimony “[She claimed] she heard a strange man offer blood money to six tough-looking fellows, among whom were “Bat” Shea and John McGough, if they would take the lives of men at the third district polling place of the 13th ward.”

Her assertion created quite a stir in the courtroom, and it took several hours of cross-examination to shake her story. In the end, her assertion that she could see her husband from Reedy’s Barn, over 400 feet away, fell apart.

The Civil Engineer who drew the crime-scene map walked the route to where she stood and confirmed the voting booth was NOT visible from there. When asked on the witness stand if he was offered $25 to kill at the polls, McGough snapped, “That’s a damned piece of perjury.”

Running with this outlandish story, which suggested political shenanigans by the Protestant majority, had to be a setback for the prosecution.

Raines’ next gambit landed him in more trouble. Repeatedly, he asked witnesses if they had seen Shea pull a revolver at the February 20th Caucus or bring illegal repeat voters to the 1st District of the 13th Ward early on election day.

Raines thus suggested Shea took 14 days of preparation and deliberation before killing Ross. Hitt objected repeatedly; his protests sustained by the Court.

When asked by Judge Williams what the prosecution theory was, Raines proposed that Shea and company were using illegal means to elect their candidate for Alderman, the owner of Dunlap’s Saloon:

“We want to show that there was violence at that caucus; that a conflict took place between John Ross and Shea, McGough and Cleary, who were there in the interest of Dunlap; that they flashed revolvers and afterwards stole the ballot box. It is upon the theory of preparation by Shea, McGough and company for the campaign of the election in March — Shea, McGough and company had noticed at the caucus that Ross and the better citizens were prepared to defeat illegal work; we will show deliberation … and we therefore believe that this is part of the motive for his crime and therefore competent evidence in the case.”

Defense Attorney Hitt strenuously objected to this strategy, noting there was no evidence for Shea bringing the repeaters into any voting booth. He cited a NY Court of Appeals case (People v. Sharp, 1887) for a ban on this line of evidence.

That Court of Appeals decision did deny the request for a new trial, and it contrasted two key approaches to criminal testimony:

“Two antagonistic methods for judicial investigating of crime and the conduct of criminal trials have existed for many years, one favoring this kind of evidence, in order that the tribunal which is engaged in the trial of the accused may have the benefit of the light to be derived from a record of the whole past life of the accused, his tendences, his nature, his associates, his practices and in fact, all the facts which go to make up the life of a human being.

“This is the method which is pursued in France, and it is claimed that entire justice is more apt to be done where such a course is pursued than where it is omitted. The common law of England, however, has adopted another and, so far as the accused is concerned, a much more merciful doctrine. By that law the criminal is presumed innocent until his guilt is made to appear beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury of twelve men.

“In order to prove his guilt, it is not permitted to show his former character, or to prove his guilt of other crimes merely for the purpose of raising a presumption that he who would commit them would be more apt to commit the crime in question.”

This writer detects real irony here. In sustaining all Hitt’s objections to this line of “presumptuous” testimony by the Raines’ prosecution, Justice Williams upheld the more compassionate American approach, following English common law.

That is, until the fourth week in the trial when the Court admitted testimony about Shea as the leader of “a gang of repeaters” at the 1st District voting place, with an assumed connection to the repeaters that showed up on March 6th at the Orr Street voting booth. Without one iota of proof!

Ross and friends were perceived all along as the “better citizens,” Shea and company “the bad actors.” What was implicit now became public. Defense attorney Hitt protested: “This man [Shea] is on trial for his life, and I hold that he should not be tried on anything but legal evidence.”

In my mind, this was unquestioningly the turning point in the trial.

In his closing statement, Haines used humor to try to land a persuasive point. To prove that Boland fired the shot that killed Robert Ross given where witnesses positioned him in that riot, he would have had to shoot his revolver from a foot and a half underground.

The jury probably bought this, assuming Ross was lying in the ravine outside the Orr Street polling place, and Shea the murderer. Where the shooters fired their guns, what position Ross was in, how many shots were fired, and where alleged shooters ran, occupied multiple days of trial testimony.

Hitt raised substantial doubts on this key point in his closing statement, pointing to a glaring inconsistency. That testimony had Ross dying while prostrate in the ravine (Thomas Lee), kneeling down (Osborn Lansing), or chasing McGough (John Ross).

Hitt argued that: “Whether Ross was sitting or lying down is of the utmost importance in this case. The fatal wound could not have been produced if the shooting was done as described by Lee and Lansing. The theory of McGough that Ross was shot while he was running is the only plausible one.”

The Albany Argus headline here captured a climactic moment in this 36-day trial, as it had for the inquest – the emotional testimony of John Ross on his brother’s death.

At that moment, he related, he held his dead brother’s head, Robert’s blood covering his hands, tears falling fast, and so choked up that he had to pause and collect himself before continuing.

The news account added this: “The jury and even the counsel were visibly affected.” This put the exclamation point on the testimony of those who said they saw Shea put a bullet in Ross’s head.

The jury of twelve said they were convinced “beyond a reasonable doubt” of Bat Shea’s guilt for the murder, with this July 4th headline to cap the trial that became a sensation around the country: “Shea Guilty. The Verdict is Murder in the First Degree.”

Rebuttals and closing statements notwithstanding, the decision was reached in just brief two hours of deliberation. Raines’ “French strategy” worked, and Hitt’s probing questions were not able to shake the charge down to second degree murder or manslaughter.  Perhaps the jury resented his allegations of political pressure and jury bribing that made Shea a “scapegoat for those in high authority.”

Attorney Hitt’s defense of Shea with his closing questions should have introduced real doubt into jury discussions. Knowing election trouble was afoot, did Boland and the Ross brothers request extra police protection from Mayor Dennis Whelan?

No. They went to the polls armed with guns and Cocobolo clubs, expecting a fight.

When Haynor allegedly pulled that iron wrench from his pocket, starting the brawl, was he defending himself or did he have murder in his heart? When did Boland load blanks into his revolver, before or after the crime? A gun expert said before.

Why did Boland run home after his friend was shot? His Republican friends posted bail before charges were filed against him? Why? And why did all of Robert Ross’s friends, after they knew he was dead, chase McGough and not Shea?

Yes, Shea also expected trouble at the polls, but he was apparently not the first to draw a weapon. Once the riot rolled across Orr Street, wasn’t all the shooting a matter of self-defense? The defense team clearly raised the possibility that Boland did fire the fatal shot, albeit with no intention of striking his friend.

All to no avail. Just two days after the trial decision, sentencing was set with Shea brought from jail in a closed carriage through streets lined with throngs of people to a packed courthouse.

The actual sentence was delayed for the defense filing of a motion to arrest the jury’s judgment and a request for a new trial. A panel for McGough’s trial for shooting Will Ross was selected, against a protest by Hitt.

But the sentence was all but a foregone conclusion. Shea was to be transferred to Dannemora Prison. The sentence? Death by electric chair.

Aftermath: Was Shea “Railroaded into the Electric Chair”?

With the electric chair in the picture, this story stayed on the front page of the Albany Argus, and it was featured by newspapers in New York City and around the country.

Each time it looked like Shea might get a new trial, an acquittal, a pardon, or just a stay of execution, the ever-vigilant Committee of 100 intervened with outraged press coverage and intense political pressure. Frank Black’s career was on a meteoric rise from his legal work on the Ross murder to his election in 1897 as the State’s Republican Governor.

One of the most fascinating news stories to run after the trial, appeared on the editorial pages of the Albany Argus, with a flat-out condemnation of a Troy threesome referred to as “Sinbad, Cholly and the Sacred Fifty.”

Under the provocative title “Fifty-Two Criminals,” the editor of The Argus clearly called this group of Troy citizens out as accessories in the murder of Robert Ross:

“It is time to examine, now that this [Shea] trial is over, who were the real criminals in Troy, who provoked this murder, who have tried to reduce the city to a state of Anarchy and who have been the foes of law and order. The officers of the law have performed their duty.

“The people who have not arrogated to themselves superior citizenship have quietly gone about their daily business and performed their duty. The Anarchists and the criminals are Cholly, Sinbad and the Sacred Fifty …

“It was by editorials in the Troy Evening Anarchist and by the incitement of the Sacred Fifty that the election day riot was brought about in Troy … There was a fight at the caucus and at the polls. One man was killed and several men were injured.

“The blood of these men is a brand upon Cholly, Sinbad and the Sacred Fifty. By public addresses, by printed statements, by circulated documents this triune of three wicked elements, father, son and concentrated hypocrisy, sought to raise the people against the law and to set themselves as authorities over the law.”

Which begs the question of who and what these allusions mean, though upstate New Yorkers knew exactly what was being communicated. “Sinbad” of course referred to Edmond Dantès, the protagonist in Alexandre Dumas’s 1844 adventure novel The Count of Monte Cristo, who rose in French society and disguised himself as Sinbad the Sailor to take revenge on all who had opposed him.

“Cholly” came from the well-known pseudonym “Cholly Knickerbocker,” adopted by a series of society and gossip columnists in New York City in the early 1890s. “The Sacred Fifty” was not a part of Black’s Committee of 100, but an earlier group of “West Troy scoundrels” charged with reporting election abuse, but found to be falsifying election returns. This group was implicated in the Orr Street election riot.

But what about the Troy Evening Anarchist? Piecing together several news reports from this time, the Argus editor had the Troy Times as his target, originally founded as The Troy Evening News. A Republican paper, it had earned its reputation for attacking elected city officials.

This partisan tabloid called for Assistant DA Fagan’s removal, the police departments’ replacement, and the use of force at the polls to fight “the Democratic machine.” As the mouthpiece for Frank Black and his Committee of 100, it was edited by a father-son team.

John M. Francis and his son Charles (“Cholly”) Francis were known to sell out their own party for personal gain and were facing a libel suit for tampering with and corrupting a jury. Those are just a few of the things earning them these monikers, Sinbad and Cholly. All this suggested the charge that politics influenced the trial and conviction of Bat Shea was credible.

Shea’s death at Dannemora was originally scheduled after the trial for the week of August 21st, with immediate attempts to delay and/or repeal the death sentence by Attorney’s Hitt and Norton. Tracking the press coverage after the murder trial ended on July 4th, this writer counted nine attempts to alter Bat Shea’s fate by introducing reasonable doubt. Here is a summary:

July 6, 1984- Shea’s defense team submitted motion for new trial before Court of Appeals.

August 21- Defense team appealed to Court of General Jurisdiction, claiming Oyer & Terminer trial was illegal. Appeal denied.

October 8, 1895– Court of Appeals affirmed decision of Oyer & Terminer court, denied undue influence by Committee of 100, and turned down new trial request.

December 23– Defense team brief filed with Governor Levi Morton requesting commutation of death sentence. Request denied and sentence reinstated.

January 8, 1896– John McGough confessed to firing the shot that killed Ross, with a respite of four weeks granted by Governor Morton to consider a new trial. Death rescheduled for February 4th.

January 29– Norton & Hitt presented arguments for a new trial before Judge Mayhem of NY Supreme Court based on McGough’s confession and newly discovered evidence. Execution date rescheduled.

February 7- Justice Mayhem denied application for new trial, one week of respite allowed to deliberate on a stay of sentence by arguing the case before Court of Appeals in its next term.

February 10– Attorney Hitt appealed to Governor to reduce sentence to life in prison. Appeal denied. Attorney Norton met with Judge Mayhem requesting stay of execution based on multiple claims of reasonable doubt, reducing verdict to manslaughter or 2nd degree murder. Request denied.

The multiple attempts to save Shea prompted an Albany Argus headline, “The Battle for Shea.” It ran Wednesday, January 29, 1896, with the McGough confession raising hope for a stay of execution and even a new trial.

“Newly discovered evidence” added to that late confession, was the best news Shea heard in months of topsy turvy legal proceedings. In short, Attorney Hitt pointed out the testimony from the earlier trial and Court of Appeals review that corroborated McGough’s confession, raising doubt over a verdict with the death penalty.

He added that McGough, too, sported a green necktie. Predictably, prosecutor Raines was able to portray McGough’s confession as an act to save a friend.

One of the people present in that Supreme Court special session in Schoharie County, NY, represented the Troy Committee of Public Safety, the 100 “good citizens” legally counseled by Attorney Black.

Amid cross-examination of testimony selected from the 12,600 pages already accumulated, Judge Mayhem rapped sharply on his desk and held up a marked copy of The Troy Times editorial that he and all the other judges in the district had received from John and Charles Francis, warning them “that no Supreme Court judge would dare to consider the motion for a new trial.”

Firmly, he declared to the prosecution and defense teams: “No newspaper reports nor reports of public meetings will be brought into this court!”

That warning followed another Argus headline on January 15th, “Black Wants Blood.” Meeting in a Troy church, he and his Committee of Public Safety issued a demand for the execution of Shea.

Not to mention the January 18th initiative by that same Committee which introduced a bill in the State Legislature “Revolutionizing Entire Course of Criminal Procedure.”

That bill if passed would completely rule out a new trial for Shea. And it got worse, prompting this February 8th news bulletin by the Court, under the headline, “A Newspaper Rebuked”:

“And this court is not Ignorant of the fact that since the granting of the respite in this case by the governor, intemperate appeals from certain newspapers have been made and resolutions have been adopted at a public meeting with no other apparent purpose than that of influencing and intimidating this court in the discharge of its judicial duties and which appeals and resolutions if aimed at a trial Jury would subject their authors to indictment for the crime of embracery.”

“Embracery” was an old common-law term for the felony of “attempting to influence a jury corruptly in favour of one party in a trial by promises, persuasions, entreaties, money, entertainments, or the like” (Oxford Reference Dictionary).

The Argus editor’s rebuke of Sinbad and Cholly was not at all off target.

Justice Mayhem’s protestations notwithstanding, Shea’s fate was sealed. The New York City Sun was just one of the many big city papers to announce Shea’s death by electric chair on February 11th.

Hitt and Norton finally abandoned all hope of saving Shea, resigning themselves to the sad fact that “the people of Troy who have been clamoring for blood will have their gory feast.” And sadly, it was just as Attorney Hitt had predicted in his closing statement almost two years earlier:

“This is one of the most outrageous proceedings ever witnessed … We have entered upon this defense driven by the committee of safety to come into this court of justice to what looks like a deliberate scheme to railroad Shea to prison and if possible to his death.”

My Verdict on This Election Tragedy

Our current national election in the USA comes at a time of heightened racial, religious, and political tension. This series of articles on the tragic Robert Ross murder and Bat Shea execution in the 1890s should be a stark reminder to us today that we are not exempt from wild conspiracy theories, blatant bias, and even resorting to violence.

Civil debate and the rule of law are what protect us from anarchy, that behemoth lurking just beneath the thin veneer of civilization. We are closer to chaos than we like.

I learned about this story from my great grandfather John Sherry who mentored Robert Ross and was a good friend of his family. I understand now why the editor of The Troy Record tried to dissuade my uncle Frank Sherry from writing his 1966 feature article on “Troy’s Most Tragic Election Fraud Case.”

Seventy years later that murder and its aftermath were still deeply troubling to Trojans, and to many other thoughtful people. Frank Sherry’s article, while trying to ease racial tension in the 1960s, painted Ross as a martyr and Shea as an Irish Catholic gangster who deserved his fate.

I have no question that Robert Ross was a fine young man whose life was tragically cut short trying to ensure fair elections.

I began my research on this story reading his biography, which canonized him as “A Martyr of Today.” Later I was presented with the other side to this story, Jack Casey’s The Trial of Bat Shea. That recreation of events shook me to the core. I now regret that all my forbears stood proudly with “The Committee for Public Safety.”

My family tree exploration brings me face to face with some uncomfortable facts. Three generations ago, the Sherrys forsook their Irish-Catholic roots and pretended to be English, to fit in with the wealthy Protestant Republican majority in Troy. Is this a form of “white privilege?”

Yes, it certainly is, and this story has brought it into focus as part of my inheritance. Was Robert Ross a martyr? I would reserve this word for a person who sacrifices his or her life for a religious faith.

John Sherry helped found the Oakwood Avenue Presbyterian Church just blocks from the Orr Street voting place. Its pastor at this time was the Rev. Joseph B. Zweifel, whose name came up multiple times in the trial, Attorney Hitt pointing out that he was an active member of the Committee of 100.

On Sundays Zweifel “preached incendiarism,” meaning he called for Ross, a member of his church, to fight for his rights, and after his death, for Shea to pay for the crime with his life.

He publicly urged that a bad character like Shea, should not have the right to testify in court. I regret to say this is my religious heritage. The gospel Jesus preached embraced the tax collector, the sinner, the downtrodden, and condemned hypocrisy.

Rev. Father G. Belanger was Shea’s spiritual advisor and administered last rites to him in his prison cell before his execution. Belanger acknowledged in his funeral message that Shea did not live up to his Catholic faith or its biblical teaching, but did face his death with grace and peace, maintaining his innocence of the murder to the end.

In a letter published after his death, Shea said “I forgive all who wronged me, and I hope to be forgiven, and bid you all a last farewell.” American Protective Association hatred for Shea and his fellow Irish Catholics was a real mystery to Attorney Hitt.

At one point in his defense, as Shea was being painted as a career criminal, he pointedly asked: “What is so bad about Bat Shea? His record shows only one misdemeanor as a minor.” Sadly, he became a convenient scapegoat.

Why all the denials of a retrial, a reduction of sentence, or a commutation? The Court of Appeals later detailed the moral reasoning which dictated the court’s denial of a retrial to Shea. That decision boiled down to a “fine distinction” in the motives Shea, Ross, and friends entered the Orr Street polling booth with, both groups carrying concealed weapons:

“While condemning in unmeasured terms the general practice of carrying weapons, we can in this case admit that the deceased [Robert Ross] or his companions ought to be defended as violators of the public peace because of their conduct on this occasion.

“Court cannot and must not recognize the claim of right to take the law into their own hands by citizens under any circumstances, but at the same time they can see the difference and make the proper distinction between acts done in furtherance of an unlawful purpose in violation of the criminal law [Bart Shea], and those acts which are done by private citizens in order to obstruct the accomplishment of that purpose and to prevent such violation [Ross].

“The citizen must not himself be guilty of a violation of law in his efforts to prevent the violation by others, but the intent with which an act is performed is the important fact which characterizes and gives point and force to the act itself. We think the action of the deceased and his friends cannot properly be said to have led to this catastrophe.”

There is something missing in this lofty-sounding ethics. When two groups enter a space with weapons targeted for each other, do we not have the violation here stated — citizens taking the law into their own hands?

This was one key point defense Attorney Hitt made. I think the real distinction that decided the case was much darker. It was voiced by a group making a last-ditch effort to save Shea from death, the Ancient Order of Hibernians of America. Their petition to the governor ran in the Argus February 9th:

“Shea was convicted as the result of the A. P. A. [American Protective Association] influence, and we, as Irish-American citizens, make an appeal that a human life be not sacrificed as the result of religious prejudice.”

I discovered reasonable doubt repeatedly in my sampling of 12,600 pages of case testimony. Attorney Hitt detailed these in his closing statements, doubt regarding the shooter, the murder weapon, the nature of the injury, the direction of fire, how alleged shooters reacted after Ross fell, who chased who afterwards, and why?

And these factors before considering possible witness coaching, jury tampering, and persistent political pressure.

The opinion rendered by the Court of Appeals noted defendant Shea did not plead self-defense, heat of passion, or aiding a companion in his act of shooting; instead, he denied he fired his weapon at all. More honesty might have stood his case in better stead, though the 100 “good citizens” of the Committee kept up their campaign for his death for almost two years.

Jack Casey in his novel on the trial has Attorney VanSantvoor raise a key question about the murder in a conversation with Attorney Black: “I don’t believe in the midst of a riot that a dozen people happened to turn at the precise moment Ross was shot and observe who pulled the trigger.”

Exactly, which brings me back to Troy’s Superintendent of Police, who thought everyone who brought a weapon to the voting booth bore some fault for the murder; and especially Haynor who pulled out that large industrial wrench, supposedly triggering the riot.

Granted, charging a group with the crime would not stand up in court, nor could the prosecution make a charge stick for the editors and politicians who poured gas on the fire.

To me, murder in the first degree with the death penalty was a gross miscarriage of justice. A reduction to murder in the second degree for the numerous inconsistencies in the case would have been justified, but with some doubt about a shooter caught in a riot, the charge of manslaughter would have been more appropriate.

I did not hear the Court rebuke the Republicans who failed to secure more police protection at the polls. And what about all the public figures who stirred the pot of religious and ethnic hatred, setting up the conditions that led to anarchy and violence?

Judge Mayhem did rebuke John and Cholly Francis, but these newsmen were just a few of the higher-ups contributing to this tragedy.

These are a few of the perennial lessons this case offers to teach us today, on the precipice of another tense election.

And the lessons for me? Deeper self-awareness, given my roots, my bias, and my own need for grace, forgiveness, and wisdom.

Illustrations, from above: The three arrested for the murder of Robert Ross; “Citizens of Troy Aroused,” New York Times March 8, 1894); The three attorneys who presided at the inquest; Governor Roswell P. Flower (1892 to 1895);  The Ross brothers from The Life of Robert Ross;  Three Shea murder trial personnel; Troy Court House from The Life of Robert Ross; Jury for the Shea murder trial from The Life of Robert Ross; “Wept As He Told It,” Albany Argus, June 24, 1894; “Shea Guilty,” Albany Argus, July 4, 1894; “The Battle for Shea,” The Albany Argus, January 29, 1896; “Black Wants Blood,” The Albany Argus, January 15, 1896.