Defense attorney Dempsey focused on Fish's strange life and the self-flagellation with nail-studded paddles and needles. Then he brought up Fish's competence as a father and his love for his children: "In spite of all these brutal, criminal and vicious proclivities, there is another side to this defendant. He has been a very fine father. He never once in his life laid a hand on one of his children. He says grace at every meal in his house. In 1917, when the youngest one of his six children was three, his wife left him. And from that time down until...