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

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Reading Time: 3 minutes [378 words]

Here is the translated text as follows:

In the most unclouded state of understanding, with the most unwavering attention to facts and the strictest self-examination, we must be cautious not to, through rashness, inadvertency, or prejudice, pass sentence upon the innocent and commit a judicial murder. If these considerations are important when dealing with a solitary individual, how much greater must their importance be in the present case? You are not now called upon to decide the fate of one, but of twelve persons. The lives of twelve men are in your hands. Your verdict will determine whether the individuals who now sit before you, in the fullness of life and strength, continue to exist or whether they shall taste the bitterness of death—the ignominious death of the gallows. This court now presents the extraordinary spectacle of a number of prisoners tallying precisely with that of the jurors. They are opposed to you, as it were, man for man, and your verdict will decide their fate both individually and collectively.

Under these circumstances, gentlemen, it becomes you to approach this trial with something akin to a religious consciousness of the imperfections of our nature and our liability to error. It is also incumbent upon you to lay aside everything that may have a tendency to darken your understanding or obscure the daylight of truth. The men before you have a host of prejudices to encounter. Despite the just and benevolent maxim of the law, "that every man shall be held innocent until proven guilty," we are too apt to believe an individual is criminal merely because he is accused. No sooner do we see him here than we discern the mark of Cain upon his forehead. Men are frequently tried under circumstances only slightly presumptive of their guilt, but the simple fact of their being brought up for trial too often pleads more strongly against them than the most eloquent prosecuting officer. This feeling operates against a prisoner exactly in accordance with the magnitude of the crime of which he is accused. In cases of robbery or larceny, the evil is not great; but let him be charged with murder, and the case is widely different. The imagination then plays tricks on us, giving rise to unwarranted assumptions and biases.

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