Frank Steunenberg - Assassination

Assassination

Four years after he left office, Steunenberg was killed outside his house in Caldwell by a bomb rigged to the front gate. Harry Orchard, a former miner from the Western Federation of Miners (WFM), was arrested shortly after for the assassination, and the investigation was conducted by Pinkerton agent James McParland. Orchard at first claimed innocence, but after solitary confinement and intense interrogation by McParland, Orchard signed a 64 page type-written confession detailing years of being a paid assassin and dynamiter for the WFM. Orchard claimed he was hired to kill Steunenberg by leadership of the WFM, as he had been in previous jobs that resulted in at least 17 other deaths. Orchard said his orders for the killing of Steunenberg came from "Big Bill" Haywood, general secretary of the WFM, Charles Moyer, president of the WFM, and George Pettibone, a labor activist who had a prior conviction related to an 1892 labor dispute in Coeur d'Alene. McParland arrested the three in Colorado in February 1906 and brought them to Idaho for trial.

The nationally publicized trial took place in Boise in 1907 and included future U.S. Senator William Borah for the prosecution and Clarence Darrow for the defense. On the stand Orchard repeated his written confession, admitting to years of setting bombs for the WFM. He was then cross-examined by defense lawyers for 26 hours spread out over a week's time. In addition to Orchard, the prosecution presented 80 more witnesses to corroborate Orchard's description of numerous attacks. Darrow and the defense team called over 100 witnesses of their own. Closing arguments lasted two weeks, the most talked about of which was by Darrow. Modern commentators have praised Darrow's closing argument, which used powerful emotional rhetoric focused on the moral superiority of the unions' position. However contemporary reaction was universally negative. The Chicoago Tribune called it "the most unseemly, abusive, inflammatory speech ever delivered in an American courtroom." Despite most observers' opinions that the verdict would be guilty, the jury returned an acquittal for Haywood. Pettibone was defended in a separate trial by Judge Orrin N. Hilton of Denver, Colorado and was also acquitted, and charges were dropped against Moyer. Orchard received a death sentence in a separate trial, but the sentence was commuted to life in prison.