Rests his case.
  • Rests his case.
Clement Vallandigham was an attorney and pro-Confederate Congressman from Ohio's 3rd district. He was super into states' rights, super opposed to the enfranchisement of black people, and considered a "wily agitator" by THE Abraham Lincoln.

In 1871, Vallandigham was representing a defendant who had allegedly shot a man in a barroom brawl. Vallandigham contended that the deceased man had, in fact, shot and killed himself by accident, like a dummy. In conference with his fellow defense attorneys, Vallandigham attempted to demonstrate the veracity of his theory:

Grabbing a pistol he believed to be unloaded, he put it in his pocket and enacted the events as he imagined them to have happened, shooting himself in the process. Vallandigham died of his wound and was buried in Woodland Cemetery, Dayton, Ohio. His last words expressed his faith in "that good old Presbyterian doctrine of predestination."

The defendant was acquitted. Vallandigham's method, however, has not caught on as a legal strategy in most mainstream law schools.

On a pretty much unrelated note, I like to think that Clement Vallandigham is a direct ancestor of William Van Landingham III: