n
and won the commendation of Judge R. B. Warden, then president judge of
the criminal court, who thereupon appointed the modest young attorney
counsel for Nancy Farrer, whose case became the great criminal case of
the term, if not of the times.

Nancy Farrer had poisoned all the members of two families. She had a bad
countenance, a sinister, revolting look. It is not strange that she
should have been considered by the court and jury that tried her, and by
the entire public, a qualified candidate for the gallows. Hayes, in
defending his client, had to contend against the passions, the
indignation of the public, and the predispositions and prejudices of
judge and jury. The judge who tried the case was not the one who
appointed the comparatively unknown attorney as counsel. Hayes saw
instinctively the immense importance of the case, and knew intuitively
that a crisis had come in his career. He set laboriously to work to
establish an impregnable line of defense.

He found on examination of the proofs that the supposed murderess was
totally irresponsible, because of hereditary idiocy and insanity. Her
father had died of drunkenness in a Cincinnati hospital, and her mother
went about under the insane hallucination that she was a prophetess.
Nancy's conduct and conversations while employed in the wholesale
poisoning business showed that she had no moral comprehension of what
she was about. But the plea of insanity had been so often and so
vehemently pressed in defense of prisoners who were sane that it seemed
to be of no avail in defense of one who was not. The cry of insanity,
like that of "wolf," had been so repeatedly raised when there was no
insanity, that it was not heeded when there was. Notwithstanding an
argument which for legal learning and forensic eloquence attracted the
attention of the press and bar, and established the counsel's
reputation, the poor, insane idiot was convicted of murder in the first
degree. Hayes at once obtained a writ of error, which the district court
reserved for decision in the Supreme Court of the State. The case was
argued and determined in that court at the December term, 1858, and
reported in 2 Ohio St. Reports. R. B. Hayes appeared for plaintiff in
error, and George E. Pugh, attorney-general for the State. The earnest
and determined advocate of Nancy Farrer carried his points, obtained a
new trial, and greatly enhanced his professional reputation. The then
official reporter of the Su