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

476 X. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

is justifiable. The injured person may repel foree by foree
against any who endeavor to commit any kind of felony on
him or his; here the rule ie, I have a right to stand on my
own defense, if you intend to commit felony. If any of the
persons made an attack on these soldiers, with an intention
to rob them, if it was but to take their hats feloniously, they
had a right to kill them on the spot, and had no business to
retreat; if a robber meets me in the street, and commands me
to surrender my purse, I have a right to kill him without
asking questions; if a person commits a bare assault on me,
this will not justify Killing; but if he assaults me in auch
a manner ps to discover an intention to kill me, I have a
Tight to destroy him, that I may put it ont of his power to
Kill me. In the case you will have to consider, I do not now
that there was any attempt to steal from these persona;
however, there were some persons concerned, who would
probably enough have stolen, if there had been anything to
steal; and many were there who had no such disposition;
but this is not the point we aim at, the question is, are you
satisfied that the people made the attack in order to kil the
soldiers? If you are satisfied that the people, whoever they
were, made that assault, with a design to kill or maim the
soldiers, this was such an assault, as will justify the soldiers
killing in their own defense.

Farther, it seems to me we may make another question,
whether you are satisfled that their real intention was to kill
or maim or not. If any reasonable man, in the situation of
one of these soldiers, would have had reason to believe in the
time of it, that the people came with an intention to kill
him, whether you have this satisfaction now, or not, in
your own minds, they were justifiable, or at least excusable,
in fring. You and I may be suspicious, that the people who
made this assault on the soldiers, did it to put them to flight,
on purpose that they might go exulting about the town after-
wards in triumph; but this will not do, you must place your-
selves in the situation of Wemms or Killroy, consider your-
selves as knowing that the prejudices of the world about you