The Price of a Manslaughter Verdict

William A. Wilcox, convicted of the manslaughter of Mrs. Charlotte Fetting, was sentenced yesterday by Judge Humes to twenty years in the penitentiary. The motion for a new trial was argued by Wilcox's attorney, W. W. Archer, of Tacoma, the argument being confined to the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict. In overruling the motion, Judge Humes said he was not the judge of the facts, but of the law alone. Had he been passing upon the facts, the verdict should have been either murder in the first degree or acquittal. But it was the province of the jury to find on any of the three degrees of homicide. Upon Prosecuting Attorney Miller's motion for sentence, Judge Humes asked Wilcox if he had any legal cause why sentence should not be pronounced. Wilcox stepped forward without embarrassment and in a hesitating manner said: 'I have no legal cause to show. I have been expecting to get money since the trial to pay for a transcript on appeal. My parents are very poor, but I expect to get the money in a few days. I suppose the only thing I can do is to throw myself on the mercy of the court. I have always been a hard-working man and not a gambler, as the prosecution endeavored to prove. I ask for the mercy of the court.' Judge Humes stated that under the verdict he was allowed to sentence Wilcox anywhere from one to twenty years. In view of the evidence and the gravity of the offense, he felt no hesitation in passing the sentence that Wilcox be confined within the penitentiary at hard labor for twenty years, and pay all costs of the prosecution.