465 Page – American State Trials 1918 Volume X Leo Frank Document

Reading Time: 3 minutes [340 words]


Here is the translated text as follows:

WILLIAM WEMMS AND SEVEN OTHERS

The defendants are charged with the murder of several of the king's liege subjects, as set forth in the indictments that have been read to you. According to these indictments, the persons slain were "being in the peace of God, and our lord the king" at the time they received their mortal wounds.

The prisoners have each pleaded not guilty and have put themselves on trial before God and their country, which you represent. By their pleas, they will stand or fall according to the evidence that applies to each of them individually.

By pleading not guilty, the defendants shift the burden of proof regarding the fact of the killing onto the crown. However, once the killing is proven, any matter they allege to justify, excuse, or extenuate must be presented by them and supported by legal evidence. It is your sole and undoubted province to determine the truth of the facts they allege. If these facts are proven to your satisfaction in the manner we allege, the grand question to be determined will be whether such matters, so proven, do, in law, extenuate, excuse, or justify. The decision on this question belongs to another department, namely, the court. This is a well-known and acknowledged principle of law, so I will not detain you with a recital of authorities but will refer you to Foster's Crown Law, where this point is treated with precision and settled beyond controversy. However, it is important to assure you that just as the cognizance of facts falls within your jurisdiction, the law resulting from these facts, in cases of the present kind, resides solely in the court, unless cases where juries, under the direction of the court, give general verdicts, may be considered exceptions.

In the case before us, it will not be contested that five persons were unfortunately killed at the time the indictments charge. This case will naturally divide itself into three main divisions of inquiry:

1. Was any homicide committed?
2. By whom was it committed?

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