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Morley Swingle is the prosecuting attorney of Cape Girardeau County. He notes that persons wanting more information about the legal career of the remarkable lawyer who defended the Trailor brothers, the book "Prairie Lawyer," by John J. Duff, is available at the Cape Girardeau Public Library.

It was one of the Midwest's most sensational murder trials. The case combined murder, money and drama. The lawyers pitted against each other were some of the best in the state.

Archie Fisher, an elderly man, quite wealthy, had mysteriously vanished. His body could not be found. William Trailor, the young man who had lived with him, claimed that he hadn't seen Fisher in days, and had no idea where he had gone.

Fisher had last been seen alive in the company of three men: William Trailor, and Trailor's two brothers, Henry Trailor and Archibald Trailor. The Trailor brothers had been spending money freely in the past few days, and Fisher's wallet had been full of money when he disappeared.

The authorities interrogated Henry Trailor first. After initial denials, he finally told them what had happened. His brothers, William and Archibald, had killed Fisher, and had hidden the body in a thicket near the river. The next day they enlisted Henry's help ^In dragging the corpse from the thicket to the water, where they dumped it. Although Henry had not seen the actual killing take place, he admitted that he had helped dispose of the body. His brothers had told him in no uncertain terms that they had committed the murder.

Henry took the police to the thicket, and showed them the drag trail. Henry became the star witness for the state in the murder trial of William and Archibald Trailor.

The prosecution was able to put on its case in one day, and by the time Henry Trailor finished testifying, having given detailed and damning testimony against his brothers, including precise measurements and exact times the events had occurred, the case looked like a certain conviction.

The courtroom was hot, since the case was being tried in June in a room without air-conditioning. The well-known defense lawyer was sweating when the prosecutor rested his case.

The defense had a surprise witness, though. The trial was held before the modern rules of criminal procedure, in the days when the defense was not required to disclose its witnesses.

The attorney for ~the defendants called one witness, Dr. Robert Gilmore, a distinguished and respected physician from a neighboring county. To the shock of everyone in the courtroom, Dr. Gilmore testified that the victim, Archie Fisher, was very much alive, although too enfeebled to come to court. Dr. Gilmore testified that Fisher suffered from recurring mental blackouts, as a result of a head injury incurred years before. Fisher could not remember where he had been during the weeks of his disappearance, but he was definitely still alive and was at Dr. Gilmore's home that very moment.

As a result of Dr Gilmore's stunning testimony, the defendants were discharged. Fisher was brought back from Dr. Gilmore's home the next week, but still could not remember how he had disappeared or what had happened to him.

The authorities were obviously embarrassed. It turned out that the star witness, Henry Trailor, had been interrogated for three straight days before he finally said what the questioners wanted to hear. His admissions, and his statements implicating his innocent brothers, had been coerced by force.

The case occurred before the Supreme Court gave us the protection of the Miranda rule, and the rest of the array of accompanying Constitutional safeguards. It occurred before even the famous case of Brown v. Mississippi, where the Court ruled that the use of a coerced confession violates the Constitution. A tragic miscarriage or justice was avoided in the Trailor case only because the defense was able to locate a witness who could prove that the murder had never occurred.

In this year of the 200th anniversary of the Bill of Rights, it is appropriate to remember this dramatic case, tried in a courtroom not so very far from Cape Girardeau. A coerced confession is a rare occurrence now, because of the protections our Constitution and Courts give us.

It seems fitting, too, that the defense lawyer in that case turned out in his later years to be one of the great protectors of our Constitution. This skilled attorney was a practicing trial lawyer for 23~ years, and was recognized as the best "jury lawyer" of his day. He tried literally thousands of cases, and argued 243 ~cases before the Illinois Supreme Court, and two before the United States Supreme Court.

The Trailor case was tried in Springfield, Illinois, on June 18, 1841. The lawyer for the defendants, the man who called Dr. Robert Gilmore as his surprise witness, was Abraham Lincoln.