Capital cases in Massachusetts at that time required two judges, and one of the two selected for the upcoming trial was Samuel Sewall of Boston, the same man who’d joined in Bradbury’s frosty opinion about Catholics. Sewall had the distinction of being the direct descendant and namesake of the Judge Samuel Sewall who had presided at the infamous Salem witch trials in 1692. The other judge was Theodore Sedgwick of Stockbridge. Sedgwick’s contempt for common farmers and working people was so notorious that during the agrarian uprising in 1787 called Shay’s Rebellion, Sedgwick’s mansion was one of the first to be burned down.On Tuesday, April 22, 1806, after five months in custody, Dominic Daley and James Halligan came before Sewall and Sedgwick and formally offered their pleas of not guilty to the charge that they murdered Marcus Lyon.Employing the traditional phrasing, the court clerk, Joseph Lyman, then inquired of them: “Dominic Daley and James Halligan, how will you be tried?”
