The Molly Maguires on Triol

Abstract The trials of the Molly Maguires began in January 1876 and ended in August 1878. They bordered on a travesty of justice. The trials were conducted under conditions of enormously hostile publicity. The defendants were arrested by private policemen and convicted on the evidence of a detective who was accused of being an agent provocateur. The detective’s evidence was supplemented by a series of informers who turned state’s evidence. Irish Catholics were excluded from the juries as a matter of course. Most of the prosecuting attorneys worked for railroads and mining companies; the star prosecutor at the great showcase trials in Pottsville was none other than Franklin B. Gowen. As one historian has aptly put it: “The Molly Maguire investigation and trials marked one of the most astounding surrenders of sovereignty in American history. A private corporation initiated the investigation through a private detective agency, a private police force arrested the supposed offenders, and coal company attorneys prosecuted-the state provided only the courtroom and hangman.” Some of the men convicted in the Molly Maguire trials were probably innocent of the crimes they were charged with, though there is no way of knowing for certain at this point.Thomas Duffy,James Roarity, and Jack Kehoe, for example, surely ought not to have been convicted as charged.