District of Columbia City Hall Scott Key, (1779–1843), and was sentenced to a mental institution. The building was also the site of the 1867 trial of John Surratt, an alleged conspirator in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln who was later acquitted. However, Charles J. Guiteau, the assassin of President James A. Garfield, was convicted at the courthouse in 1882. The Old City Hall was the scene of a fugitive slave trial known as the "Pearl incident," which was the largest single escape by slaves attempted in U.S. history. Two men were convicted in 1848 of attempting to free more than 70 slaves by sailing them
Charles J. Guiteau insane manner" he had so often observed in asylums, adding that Guiteau was a "morbid egotist" with "a tendency to misinterpret the real affairs of life". He thought the condition to be the result of "a congenital malformation of the brain". George Corkhill, who was the District of Columbia's district attorney and on the prosecuting team, summed up the prosecution's opinion of Guiteau's insanity defense in a pre-trial press statement that also mirrored public opinion on the issue. Guiteau became something of a media sensation during his entire trial for his bizarre behavior, which included his frequently cursing and insulting