Career
Judge Cook, in the case of Cordelia Botkin, made the first decision for a crime committed in two different states, Delaware and California. The defendant received a life sentence, a ruling upheld by the United States Supreme Court. In a case known as the “Gas Pipe Thugs” Judge Cook sentenced a defendant who pleaded guilty to hanging without a jury trial, a sentence that the Appellate Court upheld.
He also sentenced to death the medical student, Theodore Durrant, who was convicted in November 1895, for the murder of two young women nine days apart in a church.
These became known as the "belfry murders". The defendant unsuccessfully appealed his sentence repeatedly during the three years before his eventual hanging in 1898.
Carroll also presided over the 1908 trial of Jang In-hwan for the murder of former diplomat Durham Stevens. Cook stayed the execution and, taking the case to the United States. Supreme Court, had the sentence reduced to six years in prison.
