The Fatty Arbuckle case (1962)

THE THIRD TRIAL In March of 1922, President Warren G. Harding was given a radio that could bring in Hawaii. He listened to it a great deal and was very proud of it. When the third trial of Roscoe Arbuckle began on March 6th, President Harding said he made it a point to listen to the evening news and especially the progress of the Arbuckle trial. What he heard first was the news that a jury had been selected consisting of four women and eight men. Two alternates were chosen, a man and a woman. District Attorney Brady said that if there were true justice, Roscoe Arbuckle would be convicted of manslaughter. Gavin McNab said he was confident that after a third trial, his client would be a free man. It all had the ring of a record that had been played before, except for one thing. Both defense and prosecution had come to one conclusion: If it were proven that Virginia Rappe was a healthy girl up to the 10th of September, 1921, then there was a good chance of convicting Arbuckle. But if it were proven that Miss Rappe was organically unsound in the previous years, there was little hope of a conviction. So both adversaries neglected other aspects of the case for a dallying in the medical interpretations, despite the fact that, during the first two trials, twenty-seven doctors had contradicted each other on more than a hundred points at one time or another. Also that a medical commission of three appointed by the court had made little sense in its findings that "any conclusion about the cause of Virginia Rappe's death would be theoretical. While a woman's death through intercourse is unrecorded at 123