CLOSING ADDRESS TO THE JURY IN THE FIRST STAR ROUTE TRIAL.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Ingersoll, Robert Green and Widger, David
The second proposition is:
"The evidence must be such as to exclude every single reasonable hypothesis except that of the guilt of the defendant. In other words, all the facts proved must be consistent with and point to the guilt of the defendants not only, but every fact must be inconsistent with their innocence."
That is the law, and has been since man spoke Anglo-Saxon. Let me read you that last proposition again. I like to read it:
"The evidence must be such as to exclude every reasonable hypothesis except that of the guilt of the defendants. In other words, all the facts proved must be consistent with and point to the guilt of the defendants not only, but they must be inconsistent, and every fact must be inconsistent with their innocence."
Now, just apply that law to the case of John W. Dorsey. Apply that law to the case of Stephen W. Dorsey. Let me read further. I read now from 1 Bishop's Criminal Procedure, paragraph 1077.
"It matters not how clearly the circumstances point to guilt, still, if they are reasonably explainable on a theory which excludes guilt, they cannot satisfy the jury beyond reasonable doubt that the defendants are guilty, and hence they will be insufficient."
Just apply that to the case of Stephen W. Dorsey and John W. Dorsey. I would be willing that this jury should render a verdict with that changed. Change it. You are to find guilty if you have the slightest doubt of innocence. Even under that rule you could not find a verdict of guilty against John W. or Stephen W. Dorsey. If the rule were that you are to find guilty if you have a doubt as to innocence you could not do it; how much less when the rule is that you must have no doubt as to their guilt. The proposition is preposterous and I will not insult your intelligence by arguing it any further.
Now, then, there is another thing I want to keep before you. When a man has a little suspicion in his mind he tortures everything; he tortures the most innocent actions into the evidence of crime. Suspicion is a kind of intellectual dye that colors every thought that comes in contact with it. I remember I once had a conversation with Surgeon-General Hammond, in which he went on to state that he thought many people were confined in asylums, charged with insanity, who were perfectly sane. I asked him how he accounted for it. Said he, "Physicians are sent for to examine the man, and they are told before they get to him that he is crazy; therefore, the moment they look upon him they are hunting for insane acts and not sane acts; they are looking not to see how naturally he acts, but how unnaturally he acts." They are poisoned with the suspicion that he is insane, and if he coughs twice, or if he gets up and walks about uneasily—his mind is a little unsettled; something wrong! If he suddenly gets angry—sure thing! When a man believes himself to be or knows himself to be sane, and is charged with insanity, the very warmth, the very heat of his denial will convince thousands of people that he is insane. He suddenly finds himself insecure, and the very insecurity that he feels makes him act strangely. He finds in a moment that explanation only complicates. He finds that his denial is worthless; that his friends are suspicious, and that under pretence of his own good he is to be seized and incarcerated. Many a man as sane as you or I has under such circumstances gone to madness.
It is a hard thing to explain. The more you talk about it the more outsiders having a suspicion are convinced that you are insane. It is much the same way when a man is charged with crime. It is heralded through all the papers, "this man is a robber and a thief." Why do they put it in the papers? Put anything good in a paper about Mr. Smith, and Mr. Smith is the only man who will buy it. Put in something bad about Mr. Smith and they will have to run the press nights to supply his neighbors with copies. The bad sells. The good does not. Then you must remember another thing: That these papers are large; some of them several hundred columns, for all I know—sixty or a hundred. Just imagine the pains it would take and the money it would cost to get facts enough to fill a paper like that. Economy will not permit of it. They publish what they imagine they can sell. As a rule, people would rather heaf-something bad than something good. It is a splendid certificate to our race that rascality is still considered news. If they only put in honest actions as news it would be a certificate that honesty was rare; but as long as they publish the bad as news it is a certificate that the majority of mankind is still good.
Now, to be charged with a crime and to be suddenly deserted by your friends, and to know that you are absolutely innocent, is almost enough to drive the sanest man mad. I want you to think what these defendants have suffered in these long months. If the men who started this prosecution, if the men who originally poisoned the press of the country, feel that they have been rewarded simply because innocent men have suffered agony, let them so feel. I do not envy them their feelings.