Reading Time: 3 minutes [370 words]

PEDRO GIBERT AND OTHERS. 765

Many things, said Jupar Story, had been brought into the
present case which he regretted; but the counsel for the de-
fense had undoubtedly done right in omitting nothing ‘that
might have oceurred to their minds as likely to be of benefit
to the prisoners. The jury had had many cases read to them,
to show the difficulty of deciding upon the identity of indi-
viduals. Some of these might be founded in fact, or they
might, for aught any one could say to the contrary, be fig-
ments of the brain. They were the common-places of the
jaw, and had been cited before him for the same purposes as
now, in almost every criminal trial in which he had been en-
gaged. If they went for any thing, they went to establish
two things, viz.: first, that unless the body were found there
ought to be no conviction; second, that, because men had tes-
tified falsely, or had been mistaken as to identity, that there-
fore testimony ought not to be taken. Now these positions
were absurd. If no conviction ought to take place unless
the body of a murdered person be found, what was to be
done in cases of murder at sea, where the body was thrown
overboard and buried beneath the broad ocean?

The cases of murder were numerous, and were they to be
told that a jury had no right to convict, because the body
could not ba produced from the depths of the seat Men had
been convicted on false testimony; and what then? Are we
to say that jurors shall never convict, because men have been
found base and wicked enough to perjure themselves, for the
purpose of taking away the life of a fellow being? No one,
surely, will contend for doctrines of this kind. If they were
admitted, our courts would be useless, not only in criminal
but civil cases, and instead of being here today, the law
ought to preseribe that there should be no courts, no admin-
istration of justice throughout our country. Human testi-
mony is almost the only thing upon which we can rely in this
world; and he who undertakes to shake our faith in it, under-
takes to shake our faith in every thing on earth, and I had
almost said, in heaven, Where would be the consolations of
Christianity, which are based on human testimony! How

Related Posts