in 1787, alice clifton was brought to trial for slitting her child’s throat with a razor. the trial itself involves alice clifton very little, if at all. in fact, according to the court documentation, alice clifton was never called to testify. many individuals were questioned in the trial, yet clifton herself was never able to defend her actions. individuals such as the coroner, mr. bartholomew, and multiple doctors who examined the baby’s and clifton’s bodies were brought for examination before the court. a significant number of those questioned were medically trained, thus giving the trial a heavy focus on the medical evidence of the crime as well as the alleged perpetrator. alice clifton, in speaking with the doctors, originally tried to defend herself by claiming that the baby had been born dead. however, once the medical examiners made the observation that the baby was too old to have been that recently born and had bled too much from the throat wound for a newborn infant, that possibility was eliminated.