Joe Nocera

Someone else from Flemington who was a source for us, he said, you know, it's a town of 3,000 people.

And the first week of the trial, there were 50,000 people there.

He said the cars were backed up for like 10 miles.

That is correct.

By today's standards, it was an absolute travesty.

And the fact of the matter is, even by the standards of the 1930s, it was an unfair trial.

How so?

Well, to start with, let's just take something simple like handwriting.

So obviously the prosecution is gonna have handwriting experts who are gonna say that the handwriting is the same as Hauptmann's.

But Hauptmann says, when police got him in the room, they said, okay, they didn't just say, write some stuff.

They said, look at this note.

And they showed him the ransom note.

We want you to write this exactly the same way that this, that this ransom note is.

Exactly the same way, same spelling, same, you know, you know, curvatures.

Try to copy it.

Try to copy it.

Then he gets in the trial and they say, well, well, look, look, it's the same.

It's the same.

Didn't he have a lawyer?

Oh, he had a terrible lawyer.