039 Sheet – American State Trials 1918 Volume X Leo Frank Document

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Reading Time: 3 minutes [425 words]

Here is the translated text as follows:

EDWARD D. WORRELL

The jury members empaneled against him were: Joseph Woodruff (foreman), Thomas B. Renick, David M. Tyree, Burrell Roland, Reuben Bledsoe, Dorsey Waters, George Woodcock, Moses V. Kean, Jeremiah Pierce, William T. O. Dickinson, and Jeremiah H. Williams.

MR. COALTER'S OPENING SPEECH

Mr. Coalter: Gentlemen of the jury, at the request of Mr. Gale, the prosecuting attorney of this circuit, I rise to address you with a few remarks. I do so at his request because of my earlier knowledge of this case, which involves a transaction in another county and has been brought here by a change of venue. I hold in my hand the indictment that was found in Warren County, which was brought to this court, and I will now proceed to read it to you.

This indictment is founded upon a statute of your state, declaring two different grades of the crime of murder. The words used in these two sections have been accurately defined by judicial construction. The word "wilful" means that a person intended to kill. It supposes an actual condition of the mind in regard to the killing when the deed takes place. The words "deliberate" and "premeditated" in the act require that the killing must have been thought of before the act of killing began to take place. In order to constitute murder in the first degree, there must be a killing with intent to kill, to do the deed at the time it was done.

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Notes:

- Edward D. Worrell was removed from office by order of Governor Fletcher under the ordinances passed by the Convention of 1864, vacating all the judicial offices in the State of Missouri. See 35 Mo. Supreme Court Reports, pp. i. He died at the home of his daughter in Eureka, Mo., and is buried in the Oak Ridge Cemetery, Kirkwood, Mo. For a history of the Bay Family, see Schaff's Hist, St. Louis, Vol. 2, p. 1477.

- See 2 Am. St. Rep., 207.

- Statutes of Mo., Vol 1, pp. 558-9. "Crimes and Punishments," Art. 11, Sec. 1: "Every murder, which shall be committed by means of poison, or by lying in wait, or by any other kind of wilful, deliberate, and premeditated killing, or which shall be committed in the perpetration, or attempt to perpetrate, arson, rape, robbery, or other felony, shall be deemed murder in the first degree." Sec. 2: "All other kinds of murder at common law, not herein declared to be manslaughter, or justifiable or excusable homicide, shall be deemed murder in the second degree."

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