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

Reading Time: 3 minutes [377 words]


Here is the translated text as follows:

WILLIAM WEMMS AND SEVEN OTHERS

I hope you will approach your role as judge with a becoming temper of mind, remembering that those who are under oath to declare the whole truth think and act very differently from bystanders. Bystanders, being under no such obligations, take a latitude which is by no means admissible in a court of law.

I cannot better close this cause than by desiring you to consider well the genius and spirit of the law which will be laid down, and to govern yourselves by this great standard of truth. To some purposes, you may be said, gentlemen, to be ministers of justice. As a learned judge once said, "Ministers appointed for the ends of public justice should have written on their hearts the solemn engagements of his majesty, at his coronation, to cause law and justice in mercy to be executed in all his judgments."

"The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven—

It is twice blessed;
It blesses him that gives, and him that takes."

I leave you, gentlemen, hoping you will be directed in your inquiry and judgment to a right discharge of your duty. We shall all of us, gentlemen, have an hour of cool reflection, when the feelings and agitations of the day shall have subsided; when we shall view things through a different and much juster medium. It is then that we all wish for an absolving conscience. May you, gentlemen, now act in such a way as will hereafter ensure it; such a way as may occasion the prisoners to rejoice. May the blessing of those who were in jeopardy of life come upon you; may the blessing of him who is not faulty to die descend and rest upon you and your posterity.

**Mr. Adams:** May it please your Honor, and you, Gentlemen of the Jury: I am for the prisoners at the bar, and shall apologize for it only in the words of the Marquis Beccaria: "If I can but be the instrument of preserving one life, his blessing and tears of transport shall be a sufficient consolation to me, for the contempt of all mankind." As the prisoners stand before you for their lives, it may be proper...

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