The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney. Samuel Warren
it was Guilty! The judge assumed the crowning badge of the judicial potentate—the black cap; and the clerk of arraigns asked the prisoner at the bar, in the usual form, if he had anything to urge why sentence of death should not be passed upon him.
Poor Harvey! I durst scarcely look at him. As the sonorous words fell on his ear, he was grasping nervously with shaking hands at the front of the dock. He appeared stunned, bewildered, as a man but half-awakened from a hideous dream might be supposed to look. He had comprehended, though he had scarcely heard, the verdict; for on the instant, the voice which but a few years before sang to him by the brook side, was ringing through his brain, and he could recognize the little pattering feet of his children, as, sobbing and clinging to their shrieking mother's dress, she and they were hurried out of court The clerk, after a painful pause, repeated the solemn formula. By a strong effort the doomed man mastered his agitation; his pale countenance lighted up with indignant fire, and firm and self-possessed, he thus replied to the fearful interrogatory:—
"Much could I say in the name, not of mercy, but of justice, why the sentence about to be passed on me should not be pronounced; but nothing, alas! that will avail me with you, pride-blinded ministers of death. You fashion to yourselves—out of your own vain conceits do you fashion—modes and instruments, by the aid of which you fondly imagine to invest yourselves with attributes which belong only to Omniscience; and now I warn you—and it is a voice from the tomb, in whose shadow I already stand, which addresses you—that you are about to commit a most cruel and deliberate murder."
He paused, and the jury looked into each other's eyes for the courage they could not find in their own hearts. The voice of conscience spoke, but was only for a few moments audible. The suggestions that what grave parliaments, learned judges, and all classes of "respectability" sanctioned, could not be wrong, much less murderous or cruel, silenced the "still, small" tones, and tranquilized the startled jurors.
"Prisoner at the bar," said the judge with his cold, calm voice of destiny, "I cannot listen to such observations: you have been found guilty of a heinous offence by a jury of your countrymen after a patient trial. With that finding I need scarcely say I entirely agree. I am as satisfied of your guilt as if I had seen you commit the act with my own bodily eyes. The circumstance of your being a person who, from habits and education, should have been above committing so base a crime, only aggravates your guilt. However, no matter who or what you have been, you must expiate your offence on the scaffold. The law has very properly, for the safety of society, decreed the punishment of death for such crimes: our only and plain duty is to execute that law."
The prisoner did not reply: he was leaning with his elbows on the front of the dock, his bowed face covered with his outspread hands; and the judge passed sentence of death in the accustomed form. The court then rose, and a turnkey placed his hand upon the prisoner's arm, to lead him away. Suddenly he uncovered his face, drew himself up to his full height—he was a remarkably tall man—and glared fiercely round upon the audience, like a wild animal at bay. "My lord," he cried, or rather shouted, in an excited voice. The judge motioned impatiently to the jailor, and strong hands impelled the prisoner from the front of the dock. Bursting from them, he again sprang forward, and his arms outstretched, whilst his glittering eye seemed to hold the judge spell-bound, exclaimed, "My lord, before another month has passed away, you will appear at the bar of another world, to answer for the life, the innocent life, which God bestowed upon me, but which you have impiously cast away as a thing of naught and scorn!" He ceased, and was at once borne off. The court, in some confusion, hastily departed. It was thought at the time that the judge's evidently failing health had suggested the prophecy to the prisoner. It only excited a few days' wonder, and was forgotten.
The position of a barrister in such circumstances is always painful. I need hardly say that my own feelings were of a very distressing kind. Conscious that if the unfortunate man really was guilty, he was at least not deserving of capital punishment, I exerted myself to procure a reprieve. In the first place I waited privately on the judge; but he would listen to no proposal for a respite. Along with a number of individuals—chiefly of the Society of Friends—I petitioned the crown for a commutation of the sentence. But being unaccompanied with a recommendation from the judge, the prayer of our petition was of course disregarded: the law, it was said, must take its course. How much cruelty has been exercised under shelter of that remorseless expression!
I would willingly pass over the succeeding events. Unable to save his life, I endeavored to soothe the few remaining hours of the doomed convict, and frequently visited him in the condemned cell. The more I saw of him, the deeper grew my sympathy in his case, which was that of no vulgar felon. "I have been a most unfortunate man," said he one day to me. "A destiny towards ruin in fortune and in life has pursued me. I feel as if deserted by God and man; yet I know, or at least would persuade myself, that Heaven will one day vindicate my innocence of this foul charge. To think of being hanged like a dog for a crime at which my soul revolts! Great is the crime of those imbecile jurors and that false and hard-hearted judge, who thus, by an irreversible decree, consign a fellow-mortal to a death of violence and disgrace. Oh God, help me—help me to sustain that bitter, bitter hour!" And then the poor man would throw himself on his bed and weep.
But the parting with his wife and children. What pen can describe that terrible interview! They knelt in prayer, their wobegone countenances suffused in tears, and with hands clasped convulsively together. The scene was too harrowing and sacred for the eye of a stranger. I rushed from the cell, and buried myself in my lodgings, whence I did not remove till all was over. Next day James Harvey, a victim of circumstantial evidence, and of a barbarous criminal code, perished on the scaffold.
Three weeks afterwards, the court arrived at a populous city in the west of England. It had in the interval visited another assize town, and there Judge A—— had left three for execution. At the trials of these men, however, I had not attended. So shocked had been my feelings with the mournful event which had taken place at———, that I had gone into Wales for the sake of change of scene. After roaming about for a fortnight amidst the wild solitudes of Caernarvonshire, I took the stage for the city which I knew the court was to visit, and arrived on the day previous to the opening of the assizes.
"Well, are we to have a heavy calendar?" I inquired next morning of a brother barrister on entering the court.
"Rather light for a March assize," replied the impatient counsel as he bustled onward. "There's Cartwright's case—highway robbery—in which I am for the prosecution. He'll swing for it, and perhaps four or five others."
"A good hanging judge is A——," said the under-sheriff, who at this moment joined us, rubbing his hands, as if pleased with the prospect of a few executions. "No chance of the prophecy yonder coming to pass I suppose?"
"Not in the least," replied the bustling counsel. "He never looked better. His illness has gone completely off. And this day's work will brighten him up."
Cartwright's trial came on. I had never seen the man before, and was not aware that this was the same person whom Harvey had incidentally told me he had discharged for theft; the truth being, that till the last moment of his existence, that unfortunate man had not known how much he had been a sacrifice to this wretch's malice.
The crime of which the villain now stood accused was that of robbing a farmer of the paltry sum of eight shillings, in the neighborhood of Ilfracombe. He pleaded not guilty, but put in no defence. A verdict was recorded against him, and in due form A—— sentenced him to be hanged. An expression of fiendish malignancy gleamed over the haggard features of the felon as he asked leave to address a few words to the court. It was granted. Leaning forward, and raising his heavy, scowling eyes to the judge, he thus began:—"There is something on my mind, my lord—a dreadful crime—which, as I am to die for the eight shillings I took from the farmer, I may as well confess. You may remember Harvey, my lord, whom you hanged the other day at—?"
"What of him, fellow?" replied the judge, his features suddenly flushing crimson.
"Why, my lord, only this—that he was as innocent of the crime for which you hanged him as the child yet unborn! I did the deed! I put the watch in his trunk!" And to the unutterable horror of the entire court he related the whole particulars