Judge Ronald followed this lecture on civic righteousness and personal duty with more specific instructions to the jury, of which the following are excerpts.
"In this case you must answer the question—Is this defendant guilty or innocent? * * * Keep constantly in mind this issue and do not go astray to discuss any other of the many issues that may be suggested by or may lay hidden among the great mass of evidence in this case. Whether the Industrial Workers of the World shall or shall not speak at a certain place in the City of Everett is not an issue here. * * * Whether the open or the closed shop shall prevail is not a subject for your consideration.
"Every defendant in a criminal case is presumed to be innocent. * * * You must be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt of the facts necessary to show guilt before you can convict. * * * You should give the phrase 'proof beyond a reasonable doubt' its full meaning and weight as explained and defined to you in these instructions. On the other hand, you should not magnify nor exaggerate its force and fail to return a verdict of guilty simply because the evidence does not satisfy you of guilt to an absolute certainty. No crime can be proved to an absolute certainty.
"It does not follow because every one of the facts which are disputed between the parties may not be established beyond a reasonable doubt, that there cannot be a conviction. At the same time you will bear carefully in mind that all facts which are necessary to establish the conclusion of guilt must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
"There are two facts necessary to convict this defendant:
(1) That some person on the boat unlawfully killed Jefferson Beard.
(2) That this defendant aided, incited or encouraged such shooting.
"If you are satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt of these two facts, then you must convict, no matter what may be your belief concerning any other question in dispute in this case; if you have a reasonable doubt as to either of these two facts, then you must acquit."
The instructions then went into detail as to the rights of the workers to organize, to bargain in regard to compensation, hours of labor and conditions of work generally, to go on strike, to persuade or entice their fellow workers by peaceful means from taking the positions which they have left, to assemble at public places where such meetings are not prohibited by law and ordinance, and "no person, either private citizen or public official, has any right to deny, abridge or in any manner interfere with the full and free enjoyment of those privileges and any person who attempts to do so is himself guilty of an unlawful act."
After reciting such acts attributed to the workers in this case as were in violation of law, the instructions went on to state that "a sheriff has no authority to arrest any person without a warrant except upon probable cause for believing such person has violated a law of the state; nor has he authority after making such arrest to hold his prisoner in custody for a longer time than is reasonably necessary to cause proper complaint to be filed, and an opportunity given for bail. * * * A sheriff has no right or authority to interfere with or prevent any person from violating a city ordinance, nor has he the right or authority to arrest for violations of city ordinances" unless "the act threatened, or the act done, in violation of such ordinance be at the same time violation of a state law."