About a week ago, George Zimmerman spoke to Fox News in an interview regarding the Trayvon Martin shooting, where he expressed having no regrets. When pressed further by interviewer Sean Hannity, he stated "I feel it was all God's plan."
Interestingly, I happen to be researching Charles Julius Guiteau at the moment. Guiteau was the assassin who shot President Garfield and during his trial used the following defense:
I thought the Deity and I had done it, sir. I want it distinctly understood that I did not do that act in my own personality. I unite myself with the Deity, and I want you gentlemen to so understand it. I never should have shot the President on my own personal account. I want that distinctly understood. (Source).
Guiteau's defense tried to use the insanity plea (Guiteau himself claimed he was perfectly sane, but was insane when God told him to shoot the President; his lawyers did not make the distinction). Nearly everyone at the time, including religious leaders, agreed that Guiteau had no divine inspiration for such a pointless act and the debate centered around whether he was either insane or a self-obsessed, evil assassin. I have not seen the reactions to Zimmerman's statement, but I wonder if the number of people who believe him is comparatively higher or lower than those who believed Guiteau? That could be a depressing statistic.
Charles Rosenberg, author of The Trial of the Assassin Guiteau, argued that had Guiteau shot any other man (or had he simply wounded the President), he would have been committed to an asylum and not executed. I'm not 100% convinced that Zimmerman isn't slightly "out there" anyway, but I wonder if his defense will change if it begins to appear he can't get out of this one using the "Stand Your Ground" law? I'm not really trying to compare the two trials other than to point out a similarity in statements, but at least you could say that in both cases
they ended up being not as open-and-shut as you would think. And as you guys are well aware I'm always looking for excuses to talk about history.
Anyway, here's some general interest facts/quotes I've found regarding Guiteau. I'm of the opinion he was insane but still sane enough to know what he was doing. There's some though who still think it was all an act or that he was completely sane if admittedly a little odd.
- Charles Guiteau: "It was transitory mania that I had; that is all the insanity that I claim."
- Guiteau, in response to why he bought the particular pistol he did: "I do not claim that I was to do the specific act; but I claim that the Deity inspired me to remove the President, and I had to use my ordinary judgment as to ways and means to accomplish the Deity's will." He later hinted that he believed the ivory-handled pistol he bought would look better in a museum one day.
- Guiteau: "The Deity uses certain men to serve Him. He is using this honorable court, and this jury, and all these policemen, and these troops to serve Him and to protect me."
- Guiteau, in response to whether he killed the President: "The doctors killed him; I did not kill him."
- Guiteau: "I presume the President was a Christian, and that he will be happier in Paradise than here."
- Mr. Porter [prosecution]: "Was one of your purposes in removing the President to create a demand for your book?"
- Guiteau: "Yes, sir; with the modification that I have previously stated--to preach the gospel as set forth in the book."
- In his autobiography that he sent to the New York Herald while in prison awaiting trial, Guiteau added the footnote: "I am looking for a wife. I want an elegant Christian lady of wealth, under thirty, belonging to a first class family... I am fond of female society, and I judge the ladies are of me, and I should be delighted to find my mate."
- George M. Beard, neurologist for the defense, regarding Guiteau's mental state: "All the links of the chain are there, but they are not joined, but rather tossed about hither and thither, singly, like quoits."
- In response to Guiteau's self-written defense, one asylum superintendent described it as "...bearing the same relation to ordinary reasoning that the scenery and incidents of a nightmare bear to ordinary life."
- Before and after the assassination, Guiteau claimed that his ideas in a speech entitled "Garfield vs. Hancock" were what allowed the Republican Party to win the presidency. During the trial, it was discovered that the speech was originally for Ulysses S. Grant, who was seeking a third term but had been defeated by Garfield in the Republican convention. When Garfield got the nomination, Guiteau simply crossed out Grant's name and wrote Garfield's above it. He only gave the speech once, to a handful of citizens in New York.
Sources:
The Trial of the Assassin Guiteau by Charles E. Rosenberg
Garfield by Allan Peskin
"Excerpts from the Trial
Transcript: Cross-Examination of Charles Guiteau" at http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/guiteau/guiteautranscriptguiteaucrossx.html
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