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

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Here is the translated text as follows:

746 X. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS

The time will come when this world will be as nothing to you: when its opinions, its struggles, and its varied interests will hold no more place in your thoughts than last year's clouds. When memory, invested with preternatural power, will array before your mental gaze every action of your past lives. Then, gentlemen, at that awful moment, believe me, this verdict will not be forgotten; and if you have given it without due conviction of its justice, it will lie with the weight of mountains upon your souls. Let me conjure you, then, as you revere the majesty of truth; let me entreat you, as you venerate that Being in whose presence you must one day stand, to come to this trial with minds "swept and garnished." Judge by the law and the facts before you; grant nothing to prejudice; let no bias warp your minds. I do not ask you to give a verdict on behalf of the prisoners, but on behalf of truth. Such a verdict as, in the closing scenes of this mortal existence, will inflict no convulsive spasms of remorse upon your souls.

November 20

MR. CHILD FOR THE PRISONERS

Mr. Child: Gentlemen of the jury, any question which involves the life of a human being should be approached by those who are to decide his fate with deep feelings of religious awe. How much ought those feelings to operate on the present occasion! The jury is called upon to decide a case of as much consequence as any ever decided by twelve men since the institution of this form of trial. They are placed in a situation most awfully responsible. They are made the vicegerents of God, and the lives and destinies of twelve fellow beings, twelve of the sons of God, are placed at their disposal. By their decision, these persons might be made to suffer not only the pangs of the parting of soul and body but that in a manner of all others the most revolting. They have before them a most extraordinary spectacle. One of these very persons before them, now arraigned for life or death, had once saved the lives of those who made this decision.