Trial of Charles Getter, For the Murder of His Wife, Late of..

1833. The Last Public Execution in Pennsylvania: McDade 335 [Trial]. Getter, Charles [d.1833], Defendant. Trial of Charles Getter, For the Murder of His Wife; Late of Forks Township, Northampton County, And Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, In the Court of Oyer and Terminer, And General Goal [sic] Delivery, Held at Easton, In and For the County of Northampton, On the Third Monday of August, Anno Domini, 1833. Containing the Arguments of Counsel, At Length. Reported by a Member of the Easton Bar. Philadelphia: Printed at Alexander's General Printing Office, 1833. 71, [1] pp. Octavo (8-3/4" x 4-3/4"; 22.2 x 12 cm). Stab-stitched pamphlet bound in later three-quarter morocco over cloth, gilt title to spine. Light rubbing to extremities, light fading to spine, front joint starting at head, faint offsetting to endleaves. Light toning and light foxing to interior. $400. * Only edition. "In this case," McDade writes, "the social and civic pressure to make the poor girl an honest woman produced disastrous consequences. Getter, held in jail on a charge of fornication and bastardy, married Rebecca Lawall when given the choice of doing that or remaining in jail. Six weeks later, saddled with a wife he did not want, he choked her to death." Getter was the last person to be publicly executed in Pennsylvania; public execution was banned after a public outcry over the indifference of the vast crowd to Getter's hanging. OCLC locates 7 copies of this title in law libraries (Harvard, University of Missouri, Yale, Library of Congress, University of Pennsylvania, Worcester Trial Court Law Library, Jenkins Law Library). McDade, The Annals of Murder 335.