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

Here is the translated text as follows:

PEDRO GIBERT AND OTHERS

If it was sound, we would have failed in our duty had we not done this. Had we not acted thus, and had the prisoners been convicted, that conviction would have been something we could never have overcome. The forms and countenances of these men would have haunted our midday steps, disturbed our midnight slumbers, and we would never again have known peace.

If the individuals before you, gentlemen, are innocent, is there not something in their condition calculated to touch the heart? They are here, after a long confinement, with scarcely a rag or scrap of testimony in their favor. They are in a foreign country, far from their friends, and now on trial for their lives before a court whose forms and language are unfamiliar to them.

They are sailors who do not understand legal procedures. They do not even have the advantage of the law that says the accused shall be confronted with their accusers, as their accusers are far distant. I have mentioned, too, that they do not understand our language; such is the case. The very words I am now using fall, it is true, upon their ears, but they awaken no corresponding feelings in their souls. I look in vain for that expression in their countenances which, to an advocate, is at once his strongest stimulant and his best reward.

Mr. Hillard entered upon the facts of the case and reviewed the evidence presented by the government. He stated that the government was bound to prove that piracy had been committed by the prisoners, both singly and individually. In addressing the testimony of the Captain and crew of the Mexican, he remarked that such evidence should always be received with suspicion. Sailors are creatures of feeling, and when under the influence of revenge or any other exciting cause, they can go to great lengths. They do not reflect but feel. There are remarkable instances of this; one is found in the case of Capt. Toby, and the other in that of Otis. In both cases, the crew swore falsely.

The Court objected to Mr. Hillard’s allusion to Otis, saying that that case had not been disposed of. A reprieve had been granted.

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