It was another full house last night as Cara Robertson presented her talk titled “What the Jury Heard: Evidence in the Trial of Lizzie Borden.”
It was extremely interesting and the points made by this amazing legal scholar and Lizzie Borden expert were profound. Unfortunately, there was no recording made of the talk as the material presented is part of her unpublished book, so if you were not there, you will not get to see it again.
The talk focused on two legal issues in the trial: the exclusion of Lizzie’s inquest testimony and the prussic acid testimony of Eli Bence and others. To me, the most interesting conclusions drawn by Cara concerned the way the gender of the defendant worked both in her favor and against her—how each side used her femininity to generalize and stereotype her according to their positions of her guilt or innocence.
It was standing room only once again!
Cara Robertson is an independent scholar and lawyer writing a book on the trial of Lizzie Borden. Educated at Harvard, Oxford, and Stanford, she served as a law clerk at the Supreme Court of the United States and as legal advisor to the UN War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague. Her writing has been published in The Boston Globe, The Raleigh News and Observer, and the Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities.
There will be NO lecture next Monday as that is Columbus Day, but in two weeks, on October 19, medium Kim Dennis will reveal what she has channeled concerning this case.
