Perpetrator

“ He struck his hand against his chest, accentuating the second "me," as if he were an individual altogether separate and apart. "If I were to follow the promptings of my bosom, I should go at once to the police, and leave you to dangle on the gallows."
"You are under a misapprehension, sir. I give you my word of honour that you are. I may have been guilty--I have been guilty--of an error of judgment, but not of a crime."
"Do you call murder an error of judgment?" ”

“ The usual motive for crimes against the person—assault, manslaughter, mayhem, murder, etc.—is the desire to punish, or be avenged upon another by inflicting personal pain upon him or by depriving him of his most valuable asset—life. And this desire for retaliation or revenge generally grows out of a recent humiliation received at the hands of the other person, a real or fancied wrong to oneself, a member of one's family, or one's property. ”

“ And now, my lord, I come to the point which doubtless you and the gentlemen of the jury have been waiting for—the question of motive. Why should the prisoner, a man of evident refinement, a gentleman on behalf of whose character my learned friend, his counsel, will no doubt bring a cloud of witnesses, commit this awful crime? Why should he shoot this woman? ”

“ Is there any doubt to whom the guilt belongs, when you see on one side a broker, an enemy, an assassin, the same being also now our accuser, and on the other side a needy man, the son of the murdered man, highly thought of by his friends, on whom not only no crime but no suspicion even can be fixed? ”

“ You expect some defense when an accusation of this kind is brought against men. You are looking for explanations. You are hoping, like merciful men, that every circumstance and every word will find an explanation consistent with innocence, and when the defense fails to meet the accusation and to furnish an explanation, then it is disastrous to the defendants. The only defense that is set up here is the common defense that is set up for the commonest criminal—the favorite defense of an alibi. ”

“ An accused man sinks or swims when thrown into a pond of water; he is burnt or escapes unharmed when he holds a piece of red-hot iron in his hand; a champion whom he has hired is vanquished or vanquishes in single fight; he can keep his arms outstretched like a cross, or fails to do so longer than his accuser, and his innocence or guilt of some imputed crime is established! Are these criteria of truth? ”

“ 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. ”

“ And yet we arrest a woman, a girl really, who has come among us to help us. As a reward we arrest her! Will you honorable jurymen place a blight on the name of such a one by saying she is guilty of a crime? ”

“ May it please your lordship, and you gentlemen of the jury, I am of counsel for the King against the prisoner at the bar. You have heard that he stands indicted for a murder done upon the person of a young girl. Such crimes as this you may perhaps reckon to be not uncommon, and, indeed, in these times, I am sorry to say it, there is scarce any fact so barbarous and unnatural but what we may hear almost daily instances of it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The young man evinced some emotion, and asked his counsel to advise what step he should take. “The advice,” he was answered, “must depend upon a fact known to himself alone—his guilt or innocence. If guilty, his chance of escape was so small that it would be the last degree of rashness to refuse the offer; if, on the other hand, he were innocent, his counsel, putting himself in the place of the prisoner, would say, that no peril, however imminent, would induce him to plead guilty.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Let me tell you, gentlemen of the jury, if you agree with his prosecutors in thinking that there ought to be a sacrifice of such a man, on such an occasion, and upon the credit of such evidence, you are to convict him—never did you, never can you give a sentence, consigning any man to public punishment with less danger to his person or to his fame ”

“ I therefore submit to you, your Honour, and to you, gentlemen of the jury, two distinct lines of defence which do not conflict, and which are therefore valid under the law. We deny that any murder has been committed, that any motive for murder has been shown, that any body of the crime has been produced. ”

“ Whether justifiable or not--whether this which I call a crime may be otherwise designated as an accident or as the execution of a just punishment for trust and friendship betrayed--is for others to determine. ”

“ 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 ”

“ It was a daring, brutal murder, remember. Think of one who, not being the thief himself, would, nevertheless, have the strongest of all motives to shield the thief from the consequences of her own misdeed: aye! and the power too—since it would be absolutely illogical, nay, impossible, that he should be an accomplice. ”

“ Margrave! But you cannot suspect him—a lively, charming young man, against whose character not a whisper was ever heard—of connivance with such a charge against you,—a connivance that would implicate him in the murder itself; for if you are accused wrongfully, he who accuses you is either the criminal or the criminal’s accomplice, his instigator or his tool. ”

“ Yet there was no sign of it: no pointing, accusing hands reached out, nobody gave way to the natural impulse of those who have witnessed a revolting crime—to hurl themselves upon the criminal, to strike him or do him injury. ”

“ In each case, the factual scenario will vary greatly as to the nature of the attack, the motive for the attack, the spontaneity of, or the degree of planning for, the attack, whether there was a real and specific intention to cause injury, and other individual features which may bear on the culpability of the offender or offenders.
In the present case, the victim was targeted because of his employment as a prosecutor against a person who was effectively an inspiration and guiding light for the attack. ”

“ Suspicion, gentlemen of the jury, only points to one man; and to that man suspicion points with so unerring a finger, that the criminal stands revealed in the broad glare of detected guilt. That man is the prisoner at the bar. On the discovery of the murder, the returned wanderer, the penitent and dutiful son, was of course sought for. ”

“ I feel myself to be a guilty wretch, an assassin, and murderer.”
“Mon Dieu, monsieur, you are talking in a wild, incoherent manner. Assassin and murderer—​bah! Be reasonable if you please. Don’t talk in such a false and ridiculous strain. Come, here we are at our domicile. Jump out, and come in—​ha, ha! and make your life happy. I won’t have you accuse yourself thus wrongfully. Murder—​bah! it is ridiculous.” ”

“ Rogue, thy plea augments the offence. A crime committed on an extraordinary occasion becomes an extraordinary crime, and requires an extraordinary punishment, which I intend to see inflicted, forthwith. You have insulted the authorities, and that is the unpardonable sin in all communities. Draw nearer, friends, for I love to let my reasons be felt and understood by those who are to be affected by my decisions, and this is a happy moment, to give a short lesson to the Vévaisans--let the bride and bridegroom wait--draw nearer all, that ye may better hear what I have to say. ”

“ Theft, violence, homicide, ingratitude to beneficent parents, perjury against innocence, conspiracies against one’s country, are crimes that are universally and justly punished, though with more or less severity. ”

“ No man in prisoner's position, a gentleman by birth and upbringing, the heir of an old and proud name, with a hitherto unblemished reputation, and the prospects of a long and not inconspicuous career in front of him, would in his senses have murdered this old man.' That is a matter for you to consider, because we do know that brutal crimes are committed by the most unlikely persons. But the prosecution also allege motive, and you must consider the question of motive. ”

“ 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. ”

“ All those who purposely conceal and connive at the perpetration of this crime shall be strangled. Those who inform against, and bring to justice, criminals of this description shall be rewarded with the whole of their property. ”

“ The jury then heard the opinion of the judge, that good characters were of no weight against positive evidence, though they might turn the scale where it was doubtful; and that though, when two men attack each other, the death of either is only manslaughter; but where one is the aggressor, as in the case before them, and, in pursuance of his first attack, kills the other, the law supposes the action, however sudden, to be malicious. ”

“ If your enemy do you wrong, there is no way in which you can cause him more bitterly to repent his misdeed than by slaying yourself at his doorstep. He will be charged with your murder, and may be executed for the crime; he will be utterly ruined in establishing, if he can establish, his innocence ”

“ In support of the prosecution, it was urged, that the attempt to prevail, constituted the crime; and that it was like the case of a man’s sending intelligence to the enemy, which was as act equally criminal in the sender, whether the intelligence was received, or not. ”

“ The consequences of crime are as clearly exhibited as its motives and its supposed advantages, and few are hardy enough to declare or to exhibit a carelessness for punishment, or a contempt for the bitter fruits of their misdeeds. ”

“ 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. ”

“ One of our greatest writers has said, 'Circumstances may accumulate so strongly even against an innocent man, that, directed, sharpened, and pointed, they may slay him.' Such might have been the issue of the charge brought against the men I am defending, but happily they are in a position to meet it in a conclusive manner, and, I do not hesitate to say, to prove their innocence. ”

“ Whoever shall, by violence, do bodily harm to the person of another shall be arrested, and suffer such punishment as may on trial be adjudged against him; and should death result from such bodily harm done to the person of another, the offender shall be arrested, and suffer such punishment as may be adjudged against him. ”

“ 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 ”

“ If facts, as they were known to me, became known to others, an eager policeman, anxious to fasten guilt on some one, might arrest her on a capital charge. Apart from the question of contaminating hands, what might not be the effect, on one already in so pitiful a condition, of so hideous an accusation. ”

“ It upsets all one's ideas of Right and Wrong——just at first! Why, in that dreadful murder-trial, you would say, I suppose, that it was possible that the least guilty man in the Court was the murderer, and that possibly the judge who tried him, by yielding to the temptation of making one unfair remark, had committed a crime outweighing the criminal's whole career! ”

“ 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. ”

“ And such is also the case with him who does not avoid persecution, but out of daring presents himself for capture. Such a one, as far as in him lies, becomes an accomplice in the crime of the persecutor. And if he also uses provocation, he is wholly guilty, challenging the wild beast. ”

“ A murder has been committed, and the newspapers are scolding because the criminal has not been caught. Suspicion falls upon a poor wretch of a smuggler, who is hounded and bullied into incriminating himself. At the last moment, when the case is in the hands of the jury, the prosecuting attorney’s conscience is troubled, and he realizes that he is sending an innocent man to the gallows ”