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

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Reading Time: 3 minutes [393 words]

Here is the translated text as follows:

But, gentlemen, all the indulgences I have enumerated have been granted not to facilitate the escape of guilt, but to afford protection to the innocent. Otherwise, our laws would be a mockery, and our courts of justice merely a theater where the prize of eloquence is to be won, and where, instead of protecting the rights of our citizens, guilt might revel in crime and defy discovery more than in any other place.

If the prisoners are innocent, none of you, gentlemen, I am sure, will regret the length of time and the great labor that has attended this investigation. On the other hand, if they are guilty, and it becomes your solemn duty to render that verdict which will consign them to chains and the scaffold, will it not be a satisfaction to you that you have heard all that could be said in their behalf, enabling them, if innocent, to prove that innocence?

My duty in this case is plain. The counsel for the defense has had their duty to perform, and they have done it manfully. A duty has also been assigned to me. I have given a pledge to my country that if I possess any talents, those talents shall be exerted to the utmost in the discharge of my duty. I have taken an oath to this effect, and I must not be found recreant to that pledge, unmindful of that oath. Yet you shall hear from me no rash expressions of anger against the prisoners. It is not my duty to excite prejudices against them, but to calmly and with a firm step, progress through the merits of this case.

In pursuing this course, I shall endeavor, as much as possible, to simplify this transaction—to clear it from the mass of words beneath which it has been, doubtless unintentionally, buried. After these introductory remarks, let us proceed at once to the facts of the case. There is no doubt that the Mexican had been robbed in latitude 33, longitude 3414, by pirates. The great question was whether the captain and crew of the Panda were the individuals who committed that robbery. Let us examine the evidence bearing upon this subject. There was a schooner named the Panda in the harbor of Havana on the 12th of August, 1832. She sailed thence...

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