Thaddeus Stevens may have pioneered insanity plea in Adams County
January 2026
By Bradley R. Hoch
Newly discovered documents show that one of the earliest success insanity pleas was in Adams County and it may have been presented by Thaddeus Stevens.
In some biographies, Stevens has been incorrectly said to have present an unsuccessful insanity plea in the James Hunter case of 1817. But now it turns out there was a successful local insanity case in 1841, predating more famous cases in America and England.
Thaddeus Stevens was a head of his time when it came to murder cases and capital punishment. In the Hunter case he defended a prisoner who had approached an unarmed man from behind and sliced his neck. Stevens sought a verdict of second degree murder, a verdict that did not carry the death penalty in Pennsylvania. The jury disagreed and the prisoner was hanged.
In 1831 in Commonwealth vs. Taylor, Murder, Stevens gained acquittal for his client by convincing the jury that the gun discharged by accident. And when the county's prosecutor sought to retry the man under a new charge of Involuntary Manslaughter, Stevens succeeded in have the State Supreme Court stop the proceedings as a violation of the constitutional prohibition against double jeopardy. In 1835 in a State House floor debate, he spoke against capital punishment. In the 1839 case Commonwealth vs. Weaver, Stevens won acquittal for bartender Jacob Weaver by claiming self-defense. And in 1842, he co-authored a Pennsylvania House of Representatives' committee minority report that argued against capital punishment.
Dis Stevens also use a "not guilty by reason of insanity" plea in 1841 to gain acquittal for a client? If so, it would have been one of the earliest, successful uses of the insanity please in the United States.
"UNFORTUNATE OCCURRENCE," reported Gettysburg Compiler on November 2, 1840. "On Friday evening last, a man named Jacob Robenstein was killed by another of unsound mind, named Isaac Musselman -- both of Hamiltonban township [Adams County, PA] -- The deceased was struck on the back of the neck with the edge of an axe and lived but a short time after receiving the wound."
On October 31, One day after the murder, Daniel Musselman testified at a preliminary hearing as a witness to the assault and murder. Justice of the Peace Andrew Marshall issued a warrant for arrest and the sheriff committed Isaac Musselman to Adams County prison that same day.
The November 23rd, 1840 official inquest of the court of General Quarter Sessions of Adams County provides more information: Mussellman, "not having the fear of God before his eyes, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil, held an axe valued at one dollar in both hands and assaulted Jacob Robenstein.
Twenty-nine-year-old Dr. John King McCurdy, a graduate of a Baltimore medical school, had opened his practice in Fairfield, PA, in 1835. He had examined the corpse and testified at the inquest. Mortal blows wee described: there was one at the top of the head, four inches long and one inch deep; another was at the back of the head, three inches long and one inch deep; and a third was on the front of the head, one inch long and one inch deep. Rubenstein had died within half and hour.
The trial, Commonwealth vs. Issac Musselman, Murder, was held on January 27, 1841, in the Adams County Courthouse that was located in the center of Gettysburg's diamond (now known as the square). Musselman pled "Not Guilty," District attorney Moses McClean prosecuted the case. As was the custom in criminal cases, the defendant's attorney was not named in court records. Witnesses were Daniel Musselman, Joseph Musselman and Dr. John K. McCurdy.
Court records report that the jury: "On their oaths and affirmations, respectfully do say that the Defendant is not guilty, and the Jury further find that the said Defendant was insane in the time of the commission of the offense charged, and that he was acquitted by the Jury on the ground of such insanity ----"
The document continues: "Whereupon the court order[s] that the Defendant be kept in strict custody in the debtors apartment of the Jail [of] Adams County so long as said Defendant shall continue to be of insane mind, John Musselman having stipulated in open court to defray the expenses of his maintenance during said period." In other words, Isaac Musselman's father pledged that he would pay the costs of feeding and caring for his son in prison.
Isaac Musselman had been in the Adams County jail for almost nine years, when, at about 3 am on the morning of January 7, 1850, a fire began in his room. The entire structure was quickly engulfed by flames. Efforts were made to rescue Musselman, but the fire was too intense. Portions of his charred body were later recovered and buried in St. James cemetery. During the blaze, the body of another insane inmate, who had been housed in a different room, was dragged from the fire. Unfortunately, he was already dead from smoke inhalation. The jailor and his family who lived at the jail escaped with their lives and the jail's official papers. Only the building's blackened walls remained. A new jail was built on the site in 1851. Construction was overseen by Adams County commissioners, one of who was Isaac's brother, John Musselman Jr.
Court case Commonwealth vs Isaac Musselman is an early example of a legal system in transition. Consideration of the mental state of a defendant has a long history, going back to least into the 1200s. A successful use of the "not guilty by reason of insanity" plea in great Britain occurred the trial of James Hadfield in 1800. The 1843 M'Naghten trial, another British case, resulted in guidelines for insanity pleas. In the United States, a successful, early use of the plea occurred in People v. Freeman in 1847, when William H. Seward -- who became Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln -- acted for the defense in New York.
The Musselman case pre-dates the use of the "not guilty b y reason of insanity" plea in the more famous New York case by 6 years. It predates the early guidelines for an insanity defense, the M'Naghten Test by two years.
Who was the Gettysburg attorney who used this defense in 1841? Without documentation, this can only be surmised. What evidence exists that it might have been Thaddeus Stevens? Stevens was the preeminent trial attorney in Gettysburg at the time and was practicing law in Gettysburg in late 1840 and early 1841. Stevens' civil cases of this era are well documented: in November Term 1840-41, he was actively participating in a series of civil cases and a criminal case known as Commonwealth vs. Hutter and Cantine. He might also have been one of the few lawyers in Gettysburg who had knowledge gained by discussion with other attorneys in the state legislature of the seminal, several-hundred-page work written by Isaac Ray, A Treatise on the Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity, published in 1838 -- two years before Commonwealth vs. Isaac Musselman.
Not to be overlooked, Stevens was a friend of John Musselman (1783-1852), the father of Isaac Musselman. Stevens and Musselman had known each other surely as early as 1834 when both were candidates on the Anti-Masonic Party's ticket for local election -- Stevens for county representative to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and Musselman for Adams County Commissioner (his name was on a number of different party tickets). Why would Musselman not ask his friend to represent his son Isaac in 1840-41.
And finally, there were his known, demonstrated, anti-capital punishment views. Thaddeus Stevens was the obvious choice to defend Isaac Musselman.
Bradley R. Hoch is the author of Thaddeus Stevens in Gettysburg, the Making of an Abolitionist and books about Abraham Lincoln. He is the founder of Gettysburg Pediatrics and is a member of the Thaddeus Stevens Society.
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