When a panel of twenty-six jurors had been secured, counsel for the prisoner, through Mr. Merrick, said: "If your honor please, we are now ready to proceed to empanel the jury. Before doing so, however, we think it our duty, in behalf of the prisoner, to file our challenge to the present array. Your honor has virtually decided the question, and we do not desire to take up any time in its argument. We simply wish that it may be filed so that it can be passed upon."
The challenge in word and form is as follows:—
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.
The United States vs. John H. Surratt.
In the Criminal Court, March Term, 1867.
And the said Marshal of the District of Columbia, in obedience to the order of the Court, made in this case on the 12th of June instant, this day makes return that he hath summoned, and now hath in court here twenty-six jurors, talesmen, as a panel from which to form a jury to try the said cause, and the names of the twenty-six jurors so returned being called by the clerk of said court, and they having answered to their names as they were called, the said John H. Surratt, by his attorneys, doth challenge the array of the said panel, because he saith it doth plainly appear by the records and proceedings of the Court in this cause that no jurors have ever been summoned according to law to serve during the present term of this Court, and no names of jurors, duly and lawfully summoned, have been placed in the box provided for in the fourth section of the act of Congress, entitled, "An Act providing for the Selection of Jurors to serve in the Several Courts of the District," approved 16th of June, 1862, on or before the 1st day of February, 1867, to serve for the ensuing year, wherefore he prays judgment that the panel now returned by the said Marshal, and now in court here, be quashed.
Merrick, Bradley & Bradley,
Attorneys for Surratt.
This motion was made as a foundation for carrying the case up on a writ of error in the event of the conviction of the prisoner.
On Monday, the 18th of June, the case was opened by Mr. Nathaniel Wilson, Assistant District Attorney, as follows: "May it please your honor and gentlemen of the jury, you are doubtless aware that it is customary in criminal cases for the prosecution at the beginning of a trial to inform the jury of the nature of the offense to be inquired into, and of the proof that will be offered in support of the charges of the indictment. By making such a statement I hope to aid you in clearly ascertaining the work that is before us, and in apprehending the relevancy and significance of the testimony that will be produced as the case proceeds.
"The grand jury of the District of Columbia have indicted the prisoner at the bar, John H. Surratt, as one of the murderers of Abraham Lincoln. It has become your duty to judge whether he be guilty or innocent of that charge,—a duty than which one more solemn or momentous never was committed to human intelligence. You are to turn back the leaves of history to that red page on which is recorded in letters of blood the awful incidents of that April night on which the assassin's work was done on the body of the Chief Magistrate of the American republic,—a night on which for the first time in our existence as a nation, a blow was struck with the fell purpose not only of destroying human life, but the life of the nation, the life of liberty itself. Though more than two years have passed by since then, you scarcely need witnesses to describe to you the scene in Ford's Theatre as it was visible in the last hour of the President's conscious life. It has been present to your thoughts a thousand times since then. A vast audience were assembled, whose hearts were throbbing with a new joy, born of victory and peace, and above them the object of their gratitude and reverence,—he who had borne the nation's burdens through many and disastrous years,—sat tranquil and at rest at last, a victor indeed, but a victor in whose generous heart triumph awakened no emotions save those of kindliness, of forgiveness, and of charity. To him, in that hour of supreme tranquility, to him in the charmed circle of friendship and affection, there came the form of sudden and terrible death.
"Persons who were then present will tell you that at about twenty minutes past ten o'clock that night, the night of the 14th of April, 1865, John Wilkes Booth, armed with pistol and knife, passed rapidly from the front door of the theatre, ascended to the dress circle, and entered the President's box. By the discharge of a pistol he inflicted a death wound, then leaped upon the stage, and passing rapidly across it, disappeared into the darkness of the night.
"We shall prove to your entire satisfaction, by competent and credible witnesses, that at that time the prisoner at the bar was then present, aiding and abetting that murder; and that at ten minutes past ten o'clock that night he was in front of that theatre in company with Booth. You shall hear what he then said and did. You shall know that his cool and calculating malice was the director of the bullet that pierced the brain of the President and the knife that fell upon the venerable Secretary of State. You shall know that the prisoner at the bar was the contriver of that villainy, and that from the presence of the prisoner, Booth, drunk with theatric passion and traitorous hate, rushed directly to the execution of their mutual will. We shall further prove to you that their companionship upon that occasion was not an accidental or unexpected one, but that the butchery that ensued was the ripe result of a long premeditated plot, in which the prisoner was the chief conspirator. It will be proved to you that he is a traitor to the government that protected him; a spy in the employ of the enemies of his country in the years 1864 and 1865; passed repeatedly from Richmond to Washington, from Washington to Canada, weaving the web of his nefarious scheme, plotting the overthrow of this government, the defeat of its armies, and the slaughter of his countrymen; and as showing the venom of his intent,—as showing a mind insensible to every moral obligation and fatally bent on mischief,—we shall prove his gleeful boasts that during these journeys he had shot down in cold blood, weak and unarmed Union soldiers, fleeing from rebel prisons. It will be proved to you that he made his home in this city the rendezvous for the tools and agents in what he called his "bloody work," and that his hand deposited at Surrattsville, in a convenient place, the very weapons obtained by Booth while escaping, one of which fell or was wrenched from Booth's death grip, at the moment of his capture.
"While in Montreal, Canada, where he had gone from Richmond, on the 10th of April, on the Monday before the assassination, Surratt received a summons from his co-conspirator, Booth, requiring his immediate presence in this city. In obedience to that pre-concerted signal, he at once left Canada, and arrived here on the 14th. By numerous, I had almost said a multitude, of witnesses, we shall make the proof to be as clear as the noonday sun, and as convincing as the axioms of truth, that he was here during the day of that fatal Friday, as well as present at the theatre at night, as I have before stated. We shall show him to you on Pennsylvania Avenue, booted and spurred, awaiting the arrival of the fatal moment.