This is Part 7 of a Moral Quandary. Click here to read Part 1.

The retrial of Francesco Caruso was held in the same courtroom where he had been convicted 10 months earlier, with the same prosecutor across the aisle and the same judge presiding. 

Mrs. Pendola was present but didn’t find herself equal to sitting in the courtroom. She remained in the corridor outside.

Maria Caruso came into the courtroom with her mother, looking frail as always but hopeful and happy. Reporters overheard her say she was certain her “Frankie” would be freed this time.

But the defense had a surprise for the court.

Howard H. Spellman rose and explained to the judge that the five defense attorneys had a 3-hour conference, followed by another meeting with the defendant.  Caruso had listened to his attorneys’ counsel and wished to plead guilty. A manslaughter charge could put him away for a decade or more, but he could be sure of escaping the electric chair.

Judge McLaughlin allowed Caruso to withdraw his “Not Guilty” plea of first-degree murder and plead “Guilty” to manslaughter in the first degree. This brought the retrial to an abrupt halt.

DA Gallagher threw his paper down in disgust. “There has been a good deal of misinformation about this case,” he snorted. “I do not consent to this plea. However the district attorney is, of course, bound by the Court’s ruling.”

Now that Caruso was pleading guilty to manslaughter, the attorneys sought to soften the court’s perception of his character, in hopes that serious consideration of the mitigating factors would lead to a lighter sentence.

Defense attorney Spellman emphasized Caruso was out of his mind when he choked the doctor and then stabbed him to death. Caruso had “maniacal strength,” he said, and he used it to choke the doctor. And he was terribly strong. It would have been over in an instant.

As evidence of this statement, he showed Judge McLaughlin a plaster cast of the doctor’s head and throat. It showed, he said, that he showed a tiny broken bone from the front of his throat that had been forced through a solid mass of tissue to the backbone.

I could believe Caruso had maniacal strength. I think almost any parent could in defense of their child–and he was a pretty substantial looking fellow. Caruso’s booking photo stands out to me though as the most remarkable. It’s one of the only pictures I’ve ever seen where someone’s hands stand out more than their face. How powerfully strong those hands must have been. You could easily see how an enraged Caruso might use them to choke the life out of the doctor.

When Spellman called Mrs. Caruso before the bench to testify what a good father Francesco was to their children, she was puzzled.  She was seated next to another Italian immigrant who spoke English and could explain to her what was happening. Her husband’s life was saved but he would be going back to prison for years.

“Good God!” she screamed in Italian.  “Then the room fairly shook with her wails,” the Brooklyn Eagle reported. She was led, weeping and hysterical, out of the courtroom.

Helen Pendola remained in the corridor all morning, oblivious to what was happening inside the courtroom. When at last someone came out to tell her that Caruso was pleading guilty to manslaughter, she turned and walked away without speaking.

Francesco Caruso was sentenced on Valentine’s Day. Judge McLaughlin ordered him back to Sing Sing to serve a term of 10-20 years. It was a heavy price indeed.

Go to Part 8, the conclusion of this story!