|
178
contest with you, or with any one. I do not feel, Gentlemen as if I
was here in strife or in contest with my friend, the Attorney General.
We come here, not to contend for victory, but to learn the truth, to
vindicate justice, to administer the law. And when I speak to you,
I do it in the hope that I may aid you in the great duty, the solemn
duty, which you have to perform. If I sometimes speak earnestly,
from deep convictions, I know that you will not understand me as
fearing or apprehending that I have anything to overcome, any re-
sistance to be encountered, any opposition to contend with. No : you
are my friends-the friends of the prisoner at the bar-as you are
the friends of all men in the community of which you are brethren
with them.
Let us look, Gentlemen, to the facts, in the order in which the Gov-
,ernment are bound to prove .them, and see how far their evidence, di-
rect or circumstantial, tends to prove their case. The Government
must prove the guilt of the defendant. I say they must prove it.
The burden of proof is exclusively upon them. If they do not estab-
lish, beyond reasonable doubt, the several facts which they are bound
to prove, they cannot claim nor ask for a verdict of conviction.
The law presumes that the prisoner at the bar is not guilty, unless
it is forced upon the minds of the Jury, by a just consideration of the
evidence brought against him. And it is upon these two great and
leading presumptions of the law, that the defendant is innocent until
his guilt is proved by the Government, and proved beyond reasonable
doubt, that I approach towards the consideration of them.
They are, first, to establish the death of Dr. Parkman ; secondly, to
establish that his death was occasioned by the agency of the defendant.
First-have they proved toyour satisfaction that Dr. Parkman is dead ?
They have much evidence, certainly, tending to establish this fact.
And I wish to state that evidence to you, with the single remark, that
it is for you to pass upon, before you can proceed into the investiga-
tion of the other more material parts of the case.
Dr. Parkman entered the Medical College on Friday, the 23d of
November; and since that day he has not been seen. To show that
he is dead subsequent to that day, certain remains of a human body
are found, and evidence has been given to you, in reference to those
remains, tending to show the identity of that which has been found
with that which was lost-tending to identify the dead with the
living.
In the first place, Gentlemen, there were remains found in the vault
beneath the privy, other parts in the tea-chest, and still other parts of
a human body in the cinders of the furnace. Intelligent and most
respectable gentlemen have been called here to testify with regard to
each and all the parts of this body. Dr. Wyman, who has exhibited
much skill, much science, much knowledge in his profession, has
stated to you that the bones -the fragments of bones -which he
finds, correspond with, or belong to, parts of a body which were not
found in the tea-chest or vault. And he states that these fragments
of bones constitute part of the head, neck, arms, hands, feet, and one
leg below the knee; and that there was among these fragments noth-
ing duplicated; no fragment which must necessarily have existed in
two human bodies; no fragment which could have existed in any part
of that found in the tea-chest and vault.
|
