The Drunken Tragedy of the Minsch Brothers
A local jury delivers a second-degree murder verdict for a deputy U.S. marshal who killed his brother in a drunken rage.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The verdict of the jury in the case of Frank Minsch, charged with killing his brother, Edward A. Minsch, is murder in the second degree. It seems to us a just verdict. There was no evidence, while both brothers were armed, that they intended to kill each other, for as deputy United States marshals they had a right to carry arms. The dead brother in his violent altercation with his dissipated brother used harsh language, but its extravagance indicates no serious designs to do his slayer bodily harm. Frank Minsch, had he not been drinking heavily in public for several days, would not have excited the ire of his brother, and had he not been 'whisky-mad' or morose, he would not have 'pulled his gun' and killed his brother. The jury decided that the prisoner did not kill his brother with premeditation and therefore was not guilty of murder in the first degree; they decided that he did not kill him in self-defense, but did kill him in a fit of rage consequent upon long drinking.
“The fact that the dead man was a corpse before he could fire his revolver, which he had instinctively grasped when he saw that his brother had shown his pistol, shows that he did not seriously mean anything by his angry reproaches.”
Public intoxication and gun violence remain challenging intersections in local courts, even as the legal standards for 'diminished capacity' have evolved significantly since the 1890s.
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