108 Slide – American State Trials 1918 Volume X Leo Frank Document

76 &X. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

you longer. I cannot anticipate Major Wright's defense. He
will be elaborate and entertaining; he will read many cases.
Té he satisfies you the prisoner was insane at the time of the
killing, acquit him. Otherwise you must find him guilty of
murder in the first degree.

‘MRE, WRIGHT, FOR THE DEFENSE,

Mr. Wright. Gentlemen of the jury: Jurors, you must
pardon me if I notice for a moment the extravagant eulogies
lavished on me by the gentlemen of the prosecution. This
sorcery which they impute to me, this power to cheat men of
their reason, this capacity to lead astray the common mind,
is a thing gotten up fictitiously, and under a very transparent
policy. It is designed to hurt the defense, to impair and
weaken whatever impression may be made on your minds
by fair and manly argument, favorable to the prisoner and
his cause. In a word, by magnifying my capacity, they hope
to paralyze your own. I do not claim to be insensible to
praise, but I would have the gentlemen know that my vanity
has not blinded me to the emptiness and shallowness of their
diplomatic phraseology. In the spirit of diplomacy, I return
to these gentlemen ‘“‘the assurances of my high and distin-
guished consideration.’”

The prisoner, gentlemen, is entitled to a fair trial; the only
object of the law is justice; its only desire is the ascertain.
ment of truth; and these ends it would reach by the fair,
ealm and dispassionate exercise of the best faculties of reason
and judgment possessed by its sworn administrators, If the
Prosecution would push you to your conclusions by another
and shorter way, the prosecution wrongs the law! Gentle-
men, I rely upon you to vindicate it!

Something, at least, has heen gained by the discussion, The
prosecution began with a law of murder that had no malice
in it. My friend, Mr. Coalter could nof descend from his
generalities to a thing so elementary as malice aforethought.
It seems to be now conceded that there is such a thing, and
that it is of three kinds. and thaé ane kind will make capital