Accused

“ When a child, a wife, a servant, a student—any one under personal authority or bound by obligation of honor—is accused or suspected an explanation is demanded, and refusal to testify is held, and rightly held, a confession of guilt To question the accused—rigorously and sharply to examine him on all matters relating to the offense, and even trap him if he seem to be lying—that is Nature's method of criminal procedure; why in our public trials do we forego its advantages? It may annoy; a person arrested for crime must expect annoyance. ”

“ There is a common topic for an accuser to employ against a person, who, when he cannot deny the fact of which he is accused, still derives some hope from his attempt to show that irregularity will be introduced into all courts of justice by such proceedings. And here there will come in the demonstration of the usefulness of judicial proceedings, and the complaint of the misfortune of that person who has been punished without being condemned; and the indignation to be expressed against the audacity and cruelty of the man who has inflicted the punishment. ”

“ If it has failed to satisfy you of the guilt of the accused, and your minds are not convinced, vacillate in doubt, then you must acquit her, be the evidence what it may, positive or presumptive; but if the result of the whole evidence satisfies you, it you are convinced that she is guilty, then it is imperatively your duty to convict her, even if the character of the evidence be wholly circumstantial. ”

“ You will perhaps, as is your wont, say, 'What, then, was it that you wrapped in a linen cloth and were so careful to deposit with the household gods?' Really, Aemilianus! is this the way you accuse your victims? You produce no definite evidence yourself, but ask the accused for explanations of everything. 'Why do you search for fish? Why did you examine a sick woman? ”

“ I said.
"That may or may not be," he retorted. "My point is that the presumption of innocence is a pure fiction; that the treatment of an accused man, from the moment of his arrest, is that of a criminal. ”

“ If the accused were found guilty, judgment must be given against him: "Thou shalt condemn the wicked;" for to justify the wicked is as much an abomination to the Lord as it is to condemn the righteous, Prov. xvii. 15. 4. If the crime were not made capital by the law, then the criminal must be beaten. ”

“ When the responsibilities of lawmaker, prosecutor, judge, jury and disciplinarian are thrust upon a judge he is obviously incapable of holding the scales of justice perfectly fair and true and reflecting impartially on the guilt or innocence of the accused. ”

“ The great object is to get the accused to confess. Accuser and accused generally fall to wrangling before the judge, who sits quietly listening until they have done, when, having used this excellent opportunity for forming an opinion of the merits of the case, he pronounces sentence. ”

“ The openings of these causes which are intended to excite suspicion by their bitterness will be thus laid down by the accuser; and the general danger of all intrigues will be denounced; and men's minds will be excited so as to listen attentively. But the person who is being accused will bring forward complaints of charges having been trumped up against him, and suspicions ferreted out from all quarters ”

“ I am sure the reader will agree with me, that nothing can be more desirable than to record the names of all the parties concerned in such melancholy and bloody transactions, that they may be handed down to posterity for the use and information of the rising generation, that they may be enabled the better to judge of the motives and management of the prosecutors, and the degree of guilt or innocence of the accused. ”

“ Anybody might be an accuser,—a personal enemy, an infamous person, a child, parent, brother, or sister. Once accused, the culprit was not to be allowed to touch the ground on the way to prison, was not to be left alone there lest she have interviews with the Devil and get from him the means of being insensible under torture, was to be stripped and shaved in order to prevent her concealing some charm, or to facilitate the finding of witch-marks. ”

“ Friends and relatives were allowed to make plea for the offender, and to help him in whatever honest way they could. If a man were falsely accused, and proved innocent upon trial, he would not only be consoled by kind words, but, would probably receive substantial compensation; and it appears that judges were accustomed, at the end of important trials, to reward good conduct as well as to punish crime.* ... ”

“ In criminal cases, if an accuser offered battle, the defendant was forced either to accept it or to confess his guilt, unless he could prove an alibi, or unless the accuser was himself notoriously guilty of the crime in question, and the accusation was evidently a mere device to shift the guilt to the shoulders of another ”

“ Well, 'tis true you seem made after such a prescription;
But it does not do justice, as I can assure ye.
I'll remand you till eve, when assemble the jury,
And then if this gown that I've bought you'll appear in,
The verdict of guilty I'm certain of hearing:
For all of your guests will of envy be dying,—
The women, because you their charms are out-vieing;
The men, 'cause I've won you while vain they were trying. ”

“ But as the accuser when he is seeking to remove the guilt from others must use the topics proper to an advocate for the defence; so the man on his trial must use those topics which have been allotted to an accuser, when he wishes to transfer an accusation from his own shoulders to those of others.
IX. But conjectures will be derived from the person, if those things which have been attributed to persons are diligently considered, all of which we have mentioned in the first book; for sometimes some suspicion arises from the name. ”

“ Gentlemen of the Jury, I cannot believe that you will lend yourselves to such a grovelling prosecution—persecution, as this. I pause not to investigate where the evil spirit arose, in principles or agents, against this injured and calumniated female. If the great ones of our earth will disgrace themselves—if they will listen to the suggestions of envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness, I trust that you, more humble members of the community, will not be partakers of these evil passions. ”

“ Even if the paraphernalia of justice,—the judge, and the jury, and the lawyers, could be induced to declare her innocent before all men, must she not confess her guilt to him,—to that one,—for whose verdict alone she cared? ”

“ So it is right for you to show greater favor to the defendants. 4. For I suppose you all know that many who make terrible accusations have at once been convicted of falsifying so evidently, that they leave the court and become mistrusted for all they do. Some again have been convicted of false witness and of seeking to ruin men, when there was nothing more to their advantage. 5. Since, as I hear, there are many such cases, gentlemen of the jury, do not trust the words of the prosecution until I speak. For I hear, and I think many of you know that slander is most difficult (to deal with) . ”

“ Manly; I have been prosecuted with a cruelty scarcely to be paralleled. A person avowedly criminal in the same indictment with myself has been brought forth as a capital witness against me; a fact, I believe, totally unexampled. My lords, oppressed as I am with infamy, loaded as I am with distress, sunk under this cruel prosecution, your lordships and the gentlemen of the jury cannot think life a matter of any value to me. ”

“ But, Miss Dare, whatever anxiety I may have shown in procuring the conviction of a man I believed to be a criminal, I have never wished to win my case at the expense of justice and right; and had I been told before you came to the stand that you had been made the victim of a deception calculated to influence your judgment, I should have hastened to set you right with the same anxiety as I do now. ”

“ Judge. The errantest thief may say, he is not satisfied in his conscience.
J. C. My case is not theirs, yet they have their accusers; and may not I call for mine? And therefore call for them, for you ought to do so: as Christ said to the woman, Woman, where are thine accusers? So you ought to say to me, Man, where are thine accusers?—Interrupted.
Judge. Your indictment is your accuser, and the grand jury have found you guilty, because you did not swear: what say you, Mr. Crook, are you guilty, or not guilty? ”

“ If in former trials you have obstructed justice by slander of the dead, by falsely affirming the innocence of the guilty, by cheating in argument, by deceiving the court whom you are sworn to serve and assist, and have done all this for personal gain, do you expect, and is it reasonable for you to expect, the jury in this case to believe you? ”

“ Every one would despise the delinquent, who, while passing to trial should impose on his fellows with protestations of innocence, when he knew the judge acquainted with his guilt, and that he would soon disclose it, and open it to public view. ”

“ If, however, I seem to be anxious to rebut charges which are merely frivolous and foolish, the blame must be laid at the door of those, to whom such accusations, in spite of their triviality, can only bring disgrace. I am not to blame. Ridiculous as these charges may be, their refutation cannot but do me honour.
4. To begin then, only a short while ago, at the commencement of the indictment, you heard them say, 'He, whom we accuse in your court, is a philosopher of the most elegant appearance and a master of eloquence not merely in Latin but also in Greek!' What a damning insinuation! ”

“ The witnesses are here cautioned that they neither occasion an innocent man to be indicted, by raising a false report of him and setting common fame against him, nor assist in the prosecution of an innocent man, or one whom they do not know to be guilty, by putting their hand in swearing as witnesses against him, v. 1. Bearing false witness against a man, in a matter that touches his life, has in it all the guilty of lying, perjury, malice, theft, murder, with the additional stains of colouring all with a pretence of justice and involving many others in the same guilt. ”

“ Could the witnesses who appeared on the Court-martial be themselves tried, they would also suffer for the very same and only crime of which I have been found guilty. But I am to be the victim. Alas! my youthful inexperience, and not depravity of will, is the sole cause to which I can attribute my misfortunes. ”

“ Unless you will confess what you are and who you are in the presence of the man you have deceived so long, and accept from him and from me such mercy as we may be inclined to extend to you, I will gather together the witnesses who shall swear to your identity, and at peril of any shame to myself and those I love, I will bring upon you the just and awful punishment of your crime. ”

“ COUNTESS.
If he be guilty—
KING (sarcastically.)
IF he be guilty, madam?
COUNTESS. Yes, sire; if he has forgotten what Your Majesty has done for Poland, he is no son of mine!
KING.
I shall spare you all the reflections I have made on the subject, madam. Tyrant as
I am, I shall not punish the innocent mother for the guilty son. But perhaps this
gentleman [ALBERT] and you [WEDGEWOOD] recommended trial—
WEDGEWOOD.
Trial by jury! Your Majesty has said it! There's freedom in the very words!
KING.
How is it to be managed? ”

“ You say I am innocent, and yet you tell me I am to be condemned as a guilty man, have my gown taken from me, be torn from my wife and children, be disgraced before the eyes of all men, and be made a byword and a thing horrible to be mentioned, because I will not fee an attorney to fee another man to come and lie on my behalf, to browbeat witnesses, to make false appeals, and perhaps shed false tears in defending me. ”

“ In the midst of one’s self-accusings and misgivings, an ill-founded allegation brings a certain sense of relief: if this be the extent of my culpability, I may be proud of my conduct, is such satisfactory judgment to address to one’s own heart. He would have felt more comfort, it is true, in the reflection, if he did not remember that it was a frequent artifice of the day to accuse men of crimes of which they were innocent, to afford time and opportunity to involve them in some more grounded charge. ”

“ Eudocia
If thou art guilty, own thy crime at once; A poor defence will make thee doubly so. If the least guilt contaminates thy soul, My own would share by hearing thy excuse; I see thee not till time restore thy fame ”

“ A continual tester to give in evidence, to empanel a jury to examine us, to cry guilty, a persecutor with hue and cry to follow, an apparitor to summon us, a bailiff to carry us, a serjeant to arrest, an attorney to plead against us, a gaoler to torment, a judge to condemn, still accusing, denouncing, torturing and molesting. ”

“ I have not come to offer any arguments in defense of any act I may have committed, nor do I intend to beg for mercy at the hands of the only person who, thus far, is in a position to accuse me of a crime. ”

“ But there is one accusation yet more malicious, an accusation not only of crimes which this gentleman did not commit, but which have not yet been committed, an accusation formed by prying into futurity, and exaggerating misfortunes which are yet to come, and which may probably be prevented. Well may any man, my lords, think himself in danger, when he hears himself charged not with high crimes and misdemeanours, not with accumulative treason, but with misconduct of publick affairs, past, present, and future. ”

“ Still, his interest in this particular defendant had become visible.
"Have you any idea of the consequences of perjury?"
"No, sir."
"Do you understand what perjury is?"
"It's to lie."
"Do you tell lies?" ”