THE LAW IN THE CASE.
"Gentlemen of the jury, you have been selected with great care to try this case. You have been questioned perhaps more than you thought proper, yet we thought it our duty to be very inquisitive with reference to your past histories, so that we might, in trying this very important case, feel that we had twelve men who would render a fair and impartial verdict. You all stand before this court and before this community with characters that are written, and if, after hearing the evidence in this case, you render a truthful verdict, whether that verdict be to unlock the prison doors and set at liberty these men, or whether it be to inflict the highest punishment for the crime with which they are charged, you can go out into the world with a passport of duty done which will be an honor to you through all the future of your lives. Each of you has said under your oaths that you would try this case upon the law and the evidence—that you would render a verdict based exclusively upon the law and the evidence; that you would not be controlled by public opinion; that you would not be governed by anything other than the evidence in the case; no matter how much regard you may have for public opinion, no matter how much we may feel that oftentimes public opinion is right, yet you as jurors are sworn to try this case on the evidence and the law, and to render a verdict based upon it exclusively. You answered that you would try this case fairly and impartially. Fair and impartial verdicts mean verdicts not only fair to one side, but to both sides of a case on trial. Too often jurors and courts and even prosecutors, in their anxiety to be fair toward men on trial, step over the line of duty, and criminals go unpunished and the law becomes a farce. While I want you to give these men a fair and impartial trial; while we desire that you give them the benefit of everything the law in its wise provisions enables you to give, in your anxiety to be fair don't step over the line of duty and do an injustice to the people of this great State. You have said that before you would convict any man on trial in this case you would want the people to prove that he is guilty beyond a doubt—a reasonable doubt; that you would require the State to make out the case from the witness stand; and that you would respect the provisions of the law that says every man is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty; that you would not convict any man unless you were satisfied of his guilt from the evidence. But, let me say, the presumption of innocence is not evidence in the case, and when you hear of that presumption all the way through this case understand that it is not evidence.
"While the law presumes every man innocent until proven guilty, yet it is not such a presumption as to rebut evidence. Presumption simply stands up before you and says: Before you can convict this man he must be proven guilty. And as the evidence is given to you step by step the presumption stands as a guard between innocence and the evidence that is being given, until at last, when your mind is satisfied, when your judgment has come to the conclusion that the men are guilty, the presumption is wiped out, and you are no longer to presume the man innocent.
"When you stated that you would not convict these men except they were proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, it simply meant this—that, after hearing the evidence, if you are satisfied of the truth of the charge; if you are satisfied, as jurymen sworn to do your duty, that the men on trial are guilty, then you have no right to go digging around for doubts; you have no right to hunt around for an excuse to refrain from doing that which the law makes it your duty to do. A reasonable doubt means a doubt that is reasonable. I mention these facts because the learned counsel for the defense, which was proper and right, were anxious to impress on your minds that before you could convict anybody you must believe them guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. You have taken an oath in this case and are sworn to try it upon the law and the evidence. The oath taken is that you will well and truly try this case and the verdict render according to the law and the evidence. That means that there is an issue to be tried. The men at the bar are charged with the crime of murder on the one hand; that on the 4th of May, in this county and State, they did maliciously, wickedly and feloniously kill and murder Dr. Cronin. That is the charge made in the indictment. On the other hand, these prisoners at the bar say they are not guilty. That issue is what you are sworn to try. It is as to whether these men on trial killed and murdered Dr. Cronin. What is murder? may be asked. Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought, either expressed or implied. Before you can convict these men it becomes the duty of the people to prove every material allegation in the indictment. What are the material allegations in the indictment? First, that Dr. Cronin was killed; next, that he was killed in this county and State; next, that these defendants killed him without provocation or excuse. These are the material issues to be proven in this ease.
"If you believe from the evidence that he was murdered and that these men killed him, as charged in the indictment, then the question is settled. Then you have the law as to murder to govern you, and you are the judges of the law and the evidence; and if you find that these defendants killed him, and that he was murdered, then the statute fixes the punishment, or leaves it to you to fix the punishment. That is the law in the case, except what you may get from his honor on the bench. I apprehend that the learned counsel for the defense will not contest the fact, if it is proven that Dr. Cronin was killed, as we have charged—that he was stricken to death, as we can prove—I don't apprehend that they will contend then it was any other homicide than that of murder. So you will have that question to settle. If we prove that Dr. Cronin was killed as we allege he was killed, there will be no question as to whether it was murder or manslaughter; it will be admitted by the learned counsel for the defense that it was murder or nothing.