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John Haggerty (died 23 April 1847 ) was an Irish American laborer who was charged with the first-degree murder of American gunsmith Melchoir Fordney. The trial of John Haggerty marked the first case of using the insanity defense in American judicial history, following the trial of Daniel M'Naghten and the establishment of the M'Naghten rules in the United Kingdom.

Early Life
John Haggerty was born in the Irish portion of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and immigrated to Montreal, Quebec at the age of 20. Haggerty initially worked a number of occupations including being a lumberjack in Montreal, where he sustained a depressed fracture on the left side of his head due to being hit with a cart shaft. Eighteen years prior to the trial, he had immigrated to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania with his wife. In the autumn of 1831, Haggerty and his wife were tenants of Benjamin Herr in Manor Township, before being evicted due to attacking Herr's distiller, Thomas McFarland, with a hammer. Haggerty eventually moved to South Queen Street in Lancaster, as a neighbour to Melchoir Fordney, in April 1846. Haggerty worked primarily as a laborer. Haggerty was known for his alcoholism, resulting in several instances of alcohol-induced violence.

Haggerty had been imprisoned or institutionalized at least three times, but it has been reported that none of them included the consumption or aroma of alcohol on Haggerty. On 26th October, 1832, Haggerty had entered the house of farmer Isaac Hoover and his wife, and claimed the farmer's house as his own. Hoover had confronted Haggerty, who responded with attempted violence with a knife. Hoover, with assistance from his father and another, transported Haggerty to Intercourse, Pennsylvania. Haggerty had entered a store owned by Thomas C. Himes, and wielded a butcher's knife after being confronted by the group of three. Haggerty was then disarmed, detained and taken to magistrate Andrew Dunlap's office, of which it was determined that Haggerty was in a "state of derangement", and was sent by court order to a poorhouse in Lancaster on 27th October, 1832, and was discharged on 7th November, 1832.

Eleven years prior to the Fordney trial, Haggerty had also entered the house of Hugh Maxwell and his daughter, sat down at the coffee table and asked for food, before intimidating Maxwell and being ordered to leave. Ten years prior to the Fordney trial, Haggerty had been institutionalized at a hospital in Chester County, Pennsylvania, and was declared insane. Haggerty moved once again in 1836 as a neighbour to Jacob Ehler. Ehler had claimed Haggerty approached him with a butcher's knife hidden up his sleeve, that fell out when Haggerty was knocked down in an altercation. After the altercation with Ehler, Haggerty had moved to Stony Alley. In 1840, Haggerty had attempted to kill a resident named Sebastien Weiss while under the influence of alcohol, but only managed to paralyze him. Haggerty was declared to not be in the "right state of mind" by the Chester County sheriff and was sent to prison for six weeks in the Eastern State Penitentiary for assault and battery, where Haggerty unsuccessfully attempted suicide by trying to impale himself with an iron bar. On 1st April, 1845 and 3rd April, 1846, the alderman of Lancaster County, Michael Carpenter, and Haggerty, signed two separate voluntary affidavits that Haggerty would abstain from drinking alcohol for a year.

Murder of Fordney
Prior to the murder of Melchoir Fordney, Haggerty had progressively become delusional, expressing fierce concern over a horse he owned, who he claimed would talk to him, and spend the night prior to the murder fighting saints, and challenging Haggerty. Additionally, Haggerty had undergone specifically religious delirium, claiming that the Day of Judgement had arrived, a voice telling him that he must kill or be killed by Fordney in order to progress the Day of Judgement, and that Heaven was undergoing a war of which hundreds had been killed. Haggerty had also expressed the belief that at the time he believed him and Fordney were the only two people left in the world, and expressed confusion when Fordney's common-law wife, Catherine "Kitty" Tripple, had seen the murder of Fordney. On the day of the murder, Haggerty was supposed to visit the mayor's office to settle a previous infraction of damages to a neighbour, Jacob Bomberger. Testimonies from neighbors of events prior to the murder highlighted several instances of aggressive behaviour to Fordney. One event three months prior was explained by neighbor Joseph Like, of Haggerty threatening the life of Fordney and Tripple on assumptions of meddling in Haggerty's business and convincing a man to sue him. A second event two weeks prior detailed by neighbor Lavinia Herr explained Haggerty threatening the life of Fordney's daughter Isabella if she had trespassed on Haggerty's property again. A third event four days prior detailed by Eliza Heissleman told of Haggerty threatening Tripple causing her to flee her home. Fordney's son, Melchoir J. Fordney, had testified that on 17th October, 1846, Haggerty had sought to use a musket from Fordney's gunsmithing shop at 508 South Queen Street to kill his horse. At 9am, Haggerty had approached Fordney requesting Fordney shoot the horse, but this request was declined. In response, Haggerty forcefully commandeered a display weapon and unsuccessfully attempted to shoot the horse twice, eventually retreating into his nearby home with the rifle.

Haggerty later emerged from his home with the display rifle and an axe, and attempted to shoot the horse twice unsuccessfully due to the not firing. For the third attempt, the gun was loaded with silver sixpence coins and fired successfully, injuring the horse who ran away. The horse was later examined by Frederick Niefer, and discovered a silver coin lodged in its chest. The reasoning for using the silver coins was the belief of silver being the only method to kill spirits. The gunshot alerted the neighbors, Fordney, and Tripple, resulting in Fordney attempting to disarm Haggerty, with Tripple pleading for the rifle to be handed over by Haggerty. Haggerty had pointed the rifle at Fordney, who ran into his residence. Haggerty then gave the musket to Tripple and began following and attacking Fordney with his axe. Tripple attempted to stop him unsuccessfully. Fordney and Tripple's six-year-old daughter, Isabella, was also present in the room, ending in all three being attacked by Haggerty and his axe. Haggerty locked the door to prevent escape for the victims and to prevent outside help from interfering. Both Fordney and Tripple had died at the scene, with Isabella being temporarily paralyzed, unconscious and severely hurt, but survived the attack due to being transported next door. Haggerty blocked the front door with the corpse of Fordney, and neighbours attempted to open it. As the residence door was closed, neighbor John Steigerwalt and his sons began throwing bricks and stones at the shop windows to distract Haggerty. Haggerty had then focused on the Steigerwalts when a stone had hit him, threatening to attack them with the axe. Haggerty was then incapacitated and disarmed by Steigerwalt when a brick had struck his head. Another child of Fordney's had also alerted the deputies at the town courthouse. Haggerty was tied with rope at the scene and was about to be hanged by the neighbour group. Haggerty had additionally plead to be hanged, rather than stoned. Haggerty had also threatened another neighbour, Baltzar Nauman. Haggerty was delivered to the nearby prison by the neighbours and Deputy Sheriff Jacob Foltz.

Whilst in custody, Haggerty had his wounds treated by the attending physician of the jail, Dr. Charles L. Baker. Baker's testimony explains the delusions that Haggerty had experienced regarding his horse and other religious delirium, including seeing the Son of God riding a white horse on a tree, and his own horse fighting a battle "on the side of the Americans". Haggerty had explained that he believed his horse was at times gentle, and at times the devil. Haggerty had also been acutely aware of the punishment for his crimes, proclaiming to Dr Baker that he'll be hung, in an act of "blood for blood", and that he never held any animosity to Fordney, that the whole experience was "a dream". Haggerty had visualized the presence of a ball of fire falling from the sky that symbolized the end of the world, and that three weeks prior he thought his horse was the Antichrist. In describing his deliriums to a neighbour, Charles Boughter, Haggerty claimed the Antichrist and a fire breathing dragon had inhabited his horse and goat, and they fought all of the Friday night before. In an attempt to stop the fighting, Haggerty had bought corn to feed the horse and stop the fighting. Another delusion was the presence of a tree that would rise and sink into the ground, and would have a "strange" breed of chickens where one of them "represented Martin van Buren. A testimony by Dr John Leonard, who also tended to Haggerty after he was detained, mentioned that Haggerty saw his horse fighting against the British Army on the side of the Americans, and thus couldn't bring himself to kill his horse. Despite this, he had also seen his horse fighting against saints whilst being the Antichrist. When the horse lost this battle against the saints, Haggerty had seen the saints being led down South Queen Street by George Washington. Finally, Haggerty had given a piece of glass from a chandelier or other light fixture to the local Reverend Bernard Keenan, stating "this is the cause of all my ruin. I have taken it to be a diamond! A jewel!".

Trial
The trial for the murder of Fordney was held from 21 January 1847 to 28 January 1847, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Haggerty had pleaded not guilty. The proceedings were conducted at the court of oyer and terminer, presided upon by judge and former Pennsylvania Attorney General Ellis Lewis, and associate justices Jacob Grosh and Emmanuel Schaeffer. The prosecution counsel, representing the state of Pennsylvania, was led by Pennsylvania Attorney General Benjamin Champneys and Deputy Attorney General for Lancaster County William Mathiot. Haggerty's defense counsel was led by George Ford and John L. Thompson. Haggerty had requested a defense counsel for the trial.

Testimonies from witnesses and neighbors at the scene testified of the presence of a demijohn that smelled of whiskey inside Haggerty's bedroom, in efforts to highlight his history of violence when under the influence of alcohol, as well as claims of Haggerty drinking alcohol in the week prior to the event, when Haggerty claimed he had been sober for a week before the murder. The trial itself was held in the aftermath of the earlier establishment of the then-controversial M'Naghten rules from the United Kingdom, only three years prior. The trial had heard from over 70 witnesses, mainly from the prosecution. Two testimonies included the post-mortem analysis of the bodies of Fordney and Tripple by Dr. Geo B. Kerfoot and Dr. Henry Carpenter, describing the murder scene and the dealt inflictions, which was followed by the defence arguing that Haggerty was insane at the time of the attack due to a head fracture sustained from Haggerty's former lumberjack occupation which produced "unnatural excitement", or mania. This point was supported by the defence through a retelling of Haggerty's prior criminal history. Another witness was Dr Charles L. Baker, the practicing physician of the prison, who described the discussions he had with Haggerty after the murder, including his delusions and motives, and testified that Haggerty's alcoholism and skull fracture contributed to "excitement of the brain analogous to mania". One witness was a testimony from Dr. William Baker Fahnestock, who used the pseudoscience of phrenology to determine the motive of the attack, but declared that a former skull fracture from Haggerty's time as a lumber worker and other phrenological "evidence" did not impact the motive. Fahnestock had claimed the fracture "passes the lower edge of Wonder, Hope, and Conscientiousness, but had not reached the areas of Destructiveness or Combatitiveness.

In the final instruction to the jury, the judge Ellis Lewis repeated the basic facts of the case, and summarized the previous legal and medical precedents regarding insanity in a criminal sense, including the legislation enacted in 1794 for Pennsylvania which specified the different degrees of murder, as well as the then-recent opinion by Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court Joseph Coerten Hornblower on his aversion on recognition of the insanity defense. Lewis had also pitched to the jury that Haggerty's delusions over his talking horse and ilk would not classify legal grounds on the insanity defense if it is decided by the jury, but valid as a defense if the jury had declared Haggerty suffering from insanity due to the religious delusions that resulted in the murder of Fordney. Lewis had also presented the argument of withdrawing from alcohol consumption resulting in delirium tremens. In Lewis' summation, he had stated that if the jury decides to convict, he is guilty of murder due to the consumption of alcohol beforehand:

Lewis had also stated that the testimonies of the presence of the alcohol in Haggerty's bedroom gives weight to the potentiality that he was under the influence of alcohol despite testimonies of the absence of an alcohol smell, citing "affirmative swearing". Lastly, Lewis had argued that the jury is to decide whether the Haggerty was possibly too intoxicated to think rationally and thus be charged with second-degree murder, or that Haggerty retained his faculties despite drinking and instead murdered Fordney based on previous transgressions between them, resulting in a charge of first-degree murder.

The jury had unanimously voted on January 28th, 1847 to convict Haggerty of first-degree murder. Haggerty's defense had requested a retrial on the basis of a tainted jury and the possibility of one of the jurors stating haggerty "ought to be hung" at the scene of the murder. This request was overruled, as the basis of the request was of known comments by the juror prior to being selected as part of the jury, and is thus nullified as the objections were only brought out after the jury had voted to convict Haggerty. Haggerty was subsequently sentenced to be hanged. Lewis had stated to Haggerty that he knew he was not mentally sane and chose to commit the murder due to indifference of human life:

Haggerty was later hanged on 23 April 1847.

Legacy
The aftermath of the trial was the first use of the insanity defense in American judicial history. Since the trial, the definition of insanity in terms of crime has been expanded and elaborated. A transcript of the trial was published in 1847, and was put into reproduction in 2012 by one of Fordney's descendants, Kenneth T. Fortney. The murder, and subsequently the trial, was also referenced in the 1974 novel Centennial, and is predominantly mentioned whenever the history of the Pennsylvania-Kentucky Rifle is alluded to or explained, such as on auctions and museum exhibits for Fordney's rifles , or books detailing the long rifle's use and production. The housing of Haggerty has since been demolished, but the former gun shop and residence of Fordney still remains, at 506 and 508 South Queen Street respectively.