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

Reading Time: 3 minutes [400 words]


Here is the translated text as follows:

EDWARD D. WOREKELL, 31

There is no proof establishing that he knew of the design prior to the act and participated in it. If he is a responsible being, the evidence establishes the offense of larceny. The appropriation of the horse was subsequent to the death. If he counseled Bruff to flee after the deed, or aided him in his escape feloniously, he might be held responsible as an accessory after the fact—but he is not charged with that offense. To make him responsible for the murder, one of two things must be made manifest beyond a reasonable doubt. First, that Gordon fell by his hand; or, second, that he was killed by another under an agreement by which he was to be present and aid in the accomplishment of the design, and that he was so present and so aided, or was there ready to aid if need be, in the perpetration of the deed. It is indispensable to his guilt as an accessory before the fact that he should have knowledge of the design to kill before the killing took place, and was present assenting to the act—that is, assenting that the act should take place. The learned counsel has not laid down the law to you on this point with his accustomed clarity. He slurred the legal proposition and made presence alone, without previous knowledge of the design and concurrence in it, sufficient to render the prisoner guilty.

Presence alone is not a crime; there must be knowledge of the crime about to be committed and guilty concurrence in its perpetration. The Criminal Court of St. Louis once decided that presence at a riot raised a legal presumption that the party present was engaged in the riot, until he proved his innocence; but the Supreme Court stigmatized the doctrine with a single stroke of the pen—"This is not law"—and reversed the case.

The doctrine of the law on the subject of accessory guilt is clear, humane, and reasonable; I wish you to understand it, as it is easy to confound it in the jargon of scientific words. The law proceeds on the immutable principle that a man is responsible, criminally, only for his own acts. But he may make himself responsible for the acts of another by making that other his agent to act for him. If you sell your pork to someone else...

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