March 22, 1960

March 22, 1960, marked the opening of the proceedings against Perry Smith and Dick for the murders of the Clutter family, but the trial unfolded in stages: the court convened and selected a jury on Tuesday, while ordinary spectators first entered and testimony began on Wednesday. The date therefore marks both a procedural beginning and the threshold between months of investigation and the public testing of evidence, competing accounts, and punishment.

Background and Preparations

In the weeks before the scheduled start, the defense considered asking to move the trial out of Garden City, Kansas. Arthur Fleming argued that public sentiment was similar throughout Kansas and that Garden City might offer as favorable a setting as any: it was a religious community, and many local ministers opposed capital punishment. The defense also asked Judge Tate to authorize comprehensive psychiatric examinations at Larned State Hospital, the state institution with maximum-security facilities. The proposed examinations were intended to determine whether either defendant was unable to understand his position or assist in his defense; the lawyers emphasized that qualified psychiatrists were not available locally and that the evaluation would take several weeks.

The opening took place against the uncertainty left by the investigation. At an earlier press conference, Alvin Dewey had distinguished facts from theories: investigators knew four members of the Clutter family had been killed, but could not establish which victim had been the primary target or the order in which the deaths occurred. Dewey had developed both a single-killer and a double-killer reconstruction. Those competing possibilities underscored why the trial would have to address not only the defendants’ guilt but also conflicting accounts of what each had done.

Convening and Jury Selection

The courtroom occupied the third floor of the Finney County Courthouse. On the morning of March 22, its spectator benches held the all-male group of Finney County residents summoned for jury selection. The process, expected to take several days, was completed within four hours. The jury and two alternates were drawn from the first forty-four candidates: the defense used seven peremptory challenges, the prosecution requested three excusals, and another twenty candidates were dismissed because they opposed capital punishment or had already formed a firm opinion about guilt.

The defendants appeared differently prepared for the occasion. Dick wore a blue-serge suit, white shirt, and dark-blue tie supplied by his parents. Perry Smith, who had no jacket or tie, wore an open-necked shirt borrowed from Mr. Meier and blue jeans rolled at the cuffs. Their contrast registered the trial’s formal setting without erasing the defendants’ unequal circumstances. The first session was still devoted to selecting the jury; it was the next day, Wednesday, that ordinary spectators were admitted and the evidentiary phase properly began.

Evidence and Conflicting Accounts

The prosecution completed its case by Friday. Four Federal Bureau of Investigation laboratory specialists testified to the validity of physical exhibits, including blood samples, footprints, cartridge shells, rope, and tape. Kansas Bureau of Investigation agents also recounted their interviews with the defendants and the confessions that followed. The defense challenged those admissions, alleging that they had been obtained through improper interrogation in hot, brightly lit, confined rooms. The agents denied the allegation; the account presents the accusation as untrue and describes the detectives’ rebuttals as persuasive.

Alvin Dewey’s testimony gave the jury a public account of events drawn from Perry Smith’s confession. It also exposed a significant change in Smith’s version. Smith had first claimed that Dick killed Nancy Clutter and her mother; he later asked to correct the statement and say that he himself had killed all four members of the family. According to Dewey, Smith explained that he had earlier blamed Dick because he wanted to punish him for cowardice, then changed his account partly out of consideration for Dick’s mother. Smith continued to assign Dick substantial responsibility for the crime while claiming that he alone had fired the fatal shots. Dewey was not certain enough of Smith’s account to let him alter the written statement, and said investigators already had ample evidence without a signed confession from Smith.

The case also rested on evidence beyond the disputed statements. A radio and binoculars stolen from the Clutter home were traced to a pawnshop in Mexico City by Kansas Bureau of Investigation agent Harold Nye. Smith’s account of the escape also led investigators to the location where he said he and Dick had buried discharged shells and leftover cord and tape. The trial thus brought together physical traces, recovered property, and statements whose versions changed, while leaving the jury to assess their differing sources and reliability.

Arguments and Significance

After the evidence, the lawyers framed the central stakes in sharply different terms. The prosecution argued that both defendants were equally guilty regardless of who had pulled the trigger, and requested death sentences on the ground that the men should never again be free to roam towns and cities. The defense asked for mercy and opposed capital punishment: Arthur Fleming appealed to the inviolability of human life, while Dick’s lawyer described execution as barbaric and argued for life imprisonment instead.

The trial’s opening therefore began more than a courtroom schedule. It transformed an investigation marked by uncertainty, alternative reconstructions, and conflicting confessions into an adversarial proceeding in which the evidence could be examined and the defendants’ responsibility argued publicly. The rapid jury selection established the panel within hours; the testimony and closing arguments that followed brought the prosecution’s physical and testimonial case into direct conflict with the defense’s challenge to the confessions and to the death penalty itself.