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From clerking to mass killers
George P. Kersten (1853–1934) worked his way up
through the court system from a job as a clerk in
police court in 1880 and getting his law degree in
1885, to a justice of the peace in 1900 and election
to the circuit court in 1903. At the time of the
Iroquois Theater fire, he was busy with a
much-publicized trial involving a murderous trio
known as the car-barn
bandits.
From eight to twelve homicides were attributed to the
defendants - who boasted they'd killed over thirty
people. Kersten sentenced them to hang on March 26,
1904, and returned to less stressful cases.
Kersten's involvement with Iroquois Theater trials began
later in 1904 with the arraignment proceeding for
Iroquois Theater manager Will J. Davis, Iroquois
business manager, Thomas J. Noonan,
and
Iroquois stage carpenter, James E. Cummings.
Viva Jackson and
Belle Pinney were named as plaintiffs.
The defense submitted a motion for a change of venue
that was hotly opposed by the prosecution. After
listening to sometimes laughable arguments
for several days, Kersten agreed a change of venue was
in order and, on October 13, 1904, named Peoria as the trial site.
Theodore N. Green
was appointed as
the judge.
Quashing on the horizon
Another man might have looked for a way to toss off
the Iroquois Theater hot potato, but that was not
Kersten's way. Though confounded with 120 briefs for
a venue-change proposal, Kersten had rolled up his
sleeves and claimed to have read every word. In so
doing, he discovered over a dozen errors that forced
him to make an unpopular ruling (Open
pdf file describing this and other Iroquois Theater
fire circuit court proceedings.)
Kersten felt he had no choice but to quash (void)
the indictment against Davis. Kersten reassured the
prosecutors, however, that they would have no
difficulty correcting the errors because he'd show
them what needed to be changed, and they would have
four months in which to make the changes.
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Quash
On February 9-10, 1905, judge Kersten and Peoria judge
Theodore N. Green
met on the bench in Springfield to quash all three indictments.
Personal tragedy
At the end of February 1905, Kersten's duties were
interrupted by the death of his son.
Twenty-three-year-old Walter Kersten was a star
baseball player for his team at Northwestern. He
died from complications following appendectomy
surgery.
Indictment shuffling
The new grand jury brought indictments with some new defendants. Davis remained
as the #1 defendant but Noonan and Cummings were
replaced by city building inspectors
Edward Laughlin and
George Williams. Noonan and Cummings joined five others who had moved
on and off the target list over the prior two years,
including
Iroquois co-owner Harry Powers,
Iroquois fireman William Sallers,
Chicago mayor Carter Harrison,
fire chief William Musham and
light operator William McMullen.
Judge Green's involvement with the Iroquois Theater
fire ended with the March 11, 1905 quashing of
indictments against Noonan and Cummings.
Judge Kersten's involvement with the Iroquois
Theater ended on March 10, 1905, when he cited a
full docket and gave the case to judge Willard
Milton McEwen (1863–1927).
McEwen's only role was to
continue the case for a month before it was
transferred to judge
Marcus A. Kavanagh (1859–1937.
In the years after the fire
In 1910 George's daughter Lillian married. Three
months later, a day before their thirty-fifth
wedding anniversary, he lost his wife, Julia Baierle
Kersten. Two years later, he married a woman thirty
years his junior. The marriage lasted over two
decades. George retired six years before his death.
In his obituary, it was reported that he had tried
over 100,000 cases during his years in the police
court and that few of his verdicts were reversed on
appeal.
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