Along with six other lawyers, Edwin Stanton defended Sickles before a packed Washington courtroom eager for salacious details about the affair. Sickles admitted he’d killed Key but pleaded not guilty by reason of “temporary insanity,” the first time such a plea had been offered in the United States. Sickles had to be insane, his lawyers contended; what man wouldn’t be driven crazy by his wife’s infidelity? The all-male jury voted to acquit Sickles, another triumph for Edwin Stanton.
