Not Guilty: Thirty Six Actual Cases in Which
An Innocent Man Was Convicted
(1957)
by Judge Jerome Frank and Barbara Frank

Nancy Louise Botts


In October, 1934, twenty-nine-year-old Nancy Botts, wife of William Botts, was living with her husband in the town of Brazil, Indiana. The Bottses had been married for five months. Nancy was already pregnant and was contented with her lot. But, on the afternoon of October 12, the day on which her happiness was shattered, she had become somewhat restless and, for the moment, bored. She had finished the household tasks in her small apartment, had read the few magazines scattered on her living-room table, and felt too languid to go out and take a walk. When she heard voices in the apartment of her next-door neighbor, Marjorie Roberts, she welcomed the trivial distraction. Impetuously she decided to ring the doorbell of Marjorie's apartment. Marjorie might invite her to share whatever sociability was going on.

Marjorie did not answer the doorbell. Nancy, on terms of easy familiarity with her neighbor, turned the handle of the door, which opened to her touch. She walked into Marjorie's living room. There she saw Marjorie and three strange men confronting her. Two of the men had an astonishing reaction to her presence in the room.

"She's the woman we've been looking for!" the first man said excitedly.

"That's right!" the second man cried.

The third man reached her in one swift stride, grasped her arm, and pulled her farther into the room. Incredulous, Nancy heard him say that he was arresting her.

Later Nancy learned about the circumstances leading to this strange event.

In recent months there had been a clever criminal at work in the town of Kokomo. A young woman, usually with a small child in tow, looking the original of the picture of domesticity, would enter a store and ask to see some merchandise. After making several purchases she would suddenly find that she did not have the cash to pay. Embarrassed, she would ask the merchant to take a payroll check and, since the check called for more than the amount she owed, to give her the remaining cash. The merchant would agree, thinking that she might be­come a steady customer. Invariably the check would be returned, the words "no account" stamped across its face.

The police were notified by the merchants who had been swindled but, for several weeks, made no progress on the case. Impatient, the forger's victims hired a private detective to track her down.

In the course of his investigation the detective, accompanied by two merchants from Kokomo, called on Marjorie Roberts, as several clues led to her. While they were questioning Marjorie, Nancy made her unfortunate entrance into the Roberts' living room.

The two Kokomo merchants were certain that Nancy was
the criminal. Nancy said that she had never been in Kokomo.

The detective took Nancy to Brazil police headquarters.
There the police questioned her for two hours. Persistently she denied her guilt. But the merchants were absolutely sure that she lied. So the police took Nancy to Indianapolis, where she was arraigned and put in jail. She remained in jail until her trial, since her husband could find no way to raise the $2500 required for her bail. Nancy lived with tenor all the while. Be­cause her body suffered, too, she lost her unborn child.

The trial opened in Kokomo in the middle of November 1934. The prosecution placed seven merchants on the stand. Each described the crime by which he had been victimized. Each testified that Nancy was the criminal.

Nancy's defense rested on her alibis. An insurance collector testified that, on one of the days when Nancy was said to have been in Kokomo, he was collecting a premium from her in Brazil. Three of her neighbors swore that they had seen her near her apartment house when the other forgeries named in the indictment had occurred.

The question of which witnesses were correct was now for the jury to decide. But there was additional evidence the jury should have had: In a forgery case a comparison of the suspect's handwriting with that of the handwriting on the forged documents becomes vital. The prosecutor did not need such a comparison to prove guilt: The testimony of the identifying witnesses sufficed. But the defense needed that evidence, since a handwriting analysis would, in fact, have proved Nancy innocent. But probably because Nancy lacked the funds, her lawyer did not call a handwriting expert. The jury, without this evidence, which might have changed the direction of their thoughts, brought in a guilty verdict.

A week later the judge sentenced Nancy to not less than two and not more than fourteen years in the state penitentiary, while William, trying to give comfort to his stricken wife, could not think how.

During Nancy's first few prison months she alternated between active panic and passive, deep despair. Gradually, however, she regained her equilibrium. She learned to hope that eventually the truth would set her free, a hope finally realized.

In December 1936, two years after Nancy had begun her prison term, another series of forgeries occurred. The police, examining the new bad checks, realized that they had been written by the same forger for whose crimes Nancy had been convicted. This was proof more certain than had been presented to the jury. Nancy now had an alibi no one could dispute, since she was in prison when the new crimes took place. On December 16, 1936, the Governor granted Nancy an unconditional pardon.

The police caught Mrs. Dorsett, the real criminal, in the act. She confessed, claiming that her husband was responsible for her crimes, since he had coerced her into committing them.

The Dorsetts were tried together. Seeing Mrs. Dorsett in the courtroom, Nancy understood why at her own trial the witnesses had erred. She and Mrs. Dorsett could almost have been identical twins.

The jury could reach no verdict with regard to Mrs. Dorsett, and she went free. The jury having found her husband guilty, the judge sentenced him to not less than two and not more than fourteen years.

Nearly two and a half years later, on March 9, 1939, the state legislature awarded Nancy $4000 as compensation for her wrongful imprisonment. But she probably soon spent that money on medical care, for a few months later her doctor discovered that her heart was seriously impaired. Although no one can prove that the prison years directly caused this ailment, certainly no physician would have recommended the experience for the sake of Nancy's health.


SOURCES

1. New York Times, December 15, 1935.

2. Chicago Tribune, December 14, 1937.

3. "Convictions of Innocent Persons," editorial, New York Law Journal, August 11, 1937, Vol. 98, No. 35, p. 368.

4. Indiana, laws of 1939, Ch. 144, H. 563, approved March 9, 1939.

5. "Justice Was Blind and Dumb," by George Grady and Fred Zepp, New York Mirror, p. 3, March 23, 1955.