Carroll Cook

Carroll Cook (January 15, 1855 – ?) was an attorney and judge for the Superior Court, in San Francisco, California, best known for the national attention drawn to some of his rulings in famous cases, several of which were upheld by the United States Supreme Courtcite web
year=
month=
url=http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~npmelton/sfbcook3.htm
title=San Francisco County Biographies — Carroll Cook
publisher=
accessdate=2007-11-26 ] [cite web
author=Robert Desty
year=
month=
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=spwKAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA216&lpg=PA216&dq=carroll+cook&source=web&ots=3s_v57injK&sig=I5EGDfJnXchKQGbC0WHCGhIqf4o#PPA216,M1
title=Supreme Court Reporter United States Supreme Court
publisher=West Publishing Company
pages= p. 216
accessdate=2007-11-26 ]

Cases

Judge Cook, in the case of Cordelia Botkin, made the first decision for a crime committed in two different states, Delaware and California. The defendant received a life sentence, a ruling upheld by the United States Supreme Court. In a case known as the “Gas Pipe Thugs” Judge Cook sentenced a defendant who pleaded guilty to hanging without a jury trial, a sentence that the Appellate Court upheld. He also sentenced to death the medical student, Theodore Durrant, who was convicted in November 1895, for the murder of two young women nine days apart in a church. These became known as the "belfry murders". [cite web
author=Herbert G Kinnell
year=2000
month=December 23
url=http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1119267
title=Serial homicide by doctors: Shipman in perspective
publisher=PubMed Central
accessdate=2007-11-26 ] The defendant unsuccessfully appealed his sentence repeatedly during the three years before his eventual hanging in 1889. [cite web
year=
month=
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=Hy_aN5xSCisC&pg=PA282&lpg=PA282&dq=john+mcnulty+murder&source=web&ots=x0JdePmvqG&sig=HgDeQPhRjnjRH3fTqFynAmhpah8
title=Press Reference Library (Southwest Ed.)
publisher=The Los Angeles Examiner
pages=p. 282
accessdate=2007-11-26 ]

As an attorney, Cook defended John McNulty, on his appeal of his the death penalty sentence, for whom the gallows was erected eight separate times. Cook stayed the execution and, taking the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, had the sentence reduced to six years in prison.cite web
year=
month=
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=O9gBAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA595&lpg=PA595&dq=john+mcnulty+murder&source=web&ots=reLcDgGGAO&sig=WkEpbv47ZDaI4V-sxzu5tCkrFOo
title=Press Reference Library
publisher=International News Service
pages=p. 595
accessdate=2007-11-26 ]

Footnotes