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

474 %. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

I shall now consider the several divisions of law, under
which the evidence will arrange itself.

‘The act now before you is homicide, that is, the killing of
one man by another; the law calls it homicide, but it is not
criminal in all cases for one man to slay another. Had the
prisoners been on the plains of Abraham, and slain an hun-
dred Frenchmen apiece, the English law would have con-
sidered it as a commendable action, virtuous and praise-
worthy; so that every instance of killing a man is not a
erime in the eye of the law.

The law divides homicide into three branches; the first is
justiflable, the second excusable, and the third felonious.
Felonious homicide is subdivided into two branches: the
first is murder, which ia killing with malice sforethought, the
second is manslaughter, which is killing a man on a sudden
provocation. Here, gentlemen, are four sorts of homicide,
and you are to consider, whether all the evidence amounts
to the first, second, third, or fourth, of these heads. The fact,
was the slaying of five unhappy persons that night; you are
to consider, whether it was justifiable, excusable, or felonious ;
and, if felonious, whether it was murder or manslaughter.
One of these four it must be; you need not divide your atten-
tion to any more particulars. I shall, however, before I come
to the evidence, show you several authorities which will assist
you and me in contemplating the evidence before us.

T shall begin with justifiable homicide. If an offeer, a
sheriff, execute a man on the gallows, drawa and quarters
him, as in case of high treason, and cuta off his head, this is
justifiable homicide; it is his duty. So, also, gentlemen, the
law has planted fences and barriers around every individual;
it is a castle round every man’s person, as well as his house,
As the love of God and our neighbor comprehends the whole
duty of man, 80 self-love and social comprehend all the duties
we owe to mankind, and the first branch is self-love, which ia
not only our indisputable right, but our clearest duty; by
the laws of nature, this is interwoven in the heart of every
individual; God Almighty, whose laws we cannot slier, has