Murdering Holiness: The Trials of Franz Creffield and George Mitchell.

• Position: Book Review

JIM PHILLIPS AND ROSEMARY GARTNER, MURDERING HOLINESS: THE TRIALS OF FRANZ CREFFIELD AND GEORGE MITCHELL (Vancouver, UBC Press, 2003). 347 pp.

George Mitchell fatally shot Franz Creffield in Seattle in 1906. While Mitchell freely admitted and endorsed his action, and expressed no remorse, the trial jury acquitted him. To explain this outcome, the authors investigated the social structure in turn-of-the-century Seattle, including the belief in an "unwritten law" that justified some instances of murder, along with the interaction of these attitudes with the legally recognized insanity defense. In 1902 Oregon, Creffield--till then an obscure figure-initiated a religious cult whose beliefs developed from the 19th Century "holiness" movement. Creffield's cult attracted some twenty members, a majority of whom were women, including Mitchell's two sisters. Though initially tolerated by the community, the cult soon came under condemnation and attack. According to the authors, social attitudes in the Pacific Northwest at the time were based on male dominance and the relegation of women's role to home and church. Because Creffield's cult was antithetical to these views, while also both rejecting any sort of economic productiveness and pursuing what were believed to be promiscuous sexual practices, it soon came under physical attack by members of the community. These attacks connected with the vigilante tradition, which justified individual action where the established law failed to respond to an offense. (This was distinguished from lynching, where the established law would have been responsive but was circumvented.) Creffield was civilly judged insane and briefly institutionalized. Upon his release, the cult briefly began again, until Mitchell shot Creffield.

Mitchell justified his action on the grounds that Creffield had seduced his sisters into joining the cult. Mitchell drew on an "unwritten law" of some male dominated societies that a man was justified in killing the seducer of his wife or female family members. Mitchell immediately received strong support in the public press and, the authors infer, in the general community. The press explicitly argued Mitchell should not be tried because he was justified on the grounds that Creffield deserved to die. The authors find some legal cognizance of this defense in earlier law, but the defense was viewed disfavorably by courts at the end of the 19th Century. (Even when the defense was recognized, the authors point out, it was chauvinistic; when women murdered their seducer, or the seducer of their female family members, they were less...