JEREMIAH MASON'S LAW ARGUMENTS.
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��action, and assisted in its manage- ment. Parker Noyes conducted the defence. Mr. Mason complimented him for the ability of his argument. The case was submitted to a very intelligent jury, of which Hon. Isaac Hill was foreman, Jeremiah Pecker, Esq., of East Concord, was second on the panel, and Joshua Fifield, Esq., of. Salisbury, was No. 3. Fifield knew the parties and witnesses. The ver- dict of the jury was for the defendant. The Exon. rendered on the verdict had the effect of breaking up Cross- man, and he soon removed away from this part of the state. It was not a very profitable suit for Lowell. He remarked to us, in reference to this case, "that he fought against imposi- tion in defence of his character and for victory."
At a later stage of this term we lis- tened to one of the most able efforts of Mr. Mason which distinguished his long career at the bar. It was in be- half of two medieal students, who were indicted by the grand jury for digging up the body of a young lady in the town of Northfield in this county. The case naturally gave rise to much excitement and public interest. On the part of the government the prose- cution was managed by Geo. Sullivan, then attorney-general, with signal ability. "There were giants on the earth in those days." The facts dis- closed by the evidence in the case did not show the body in the possession of the respondents, or that they had been recognized by any one as having been connected in digging up the body. The body was not actually removed, as the parties engaged in digging it up were actually frightened away by a person who happened to pass by the grave-yard at the time the digging was going on. The government relied upon the tracks of a horse and wagon traced on the highway some miles westerly of the grave-yard, and driven by the respondents. On this evidence of the state Mr. Mason strenously contended that the offence charged was not fastened upon his clients with
��sufficient legal certainty, and claimed that a strong legal doubt existed whether the respondents had in any way parti- cipated in the transaction, arguing that there was a total want of positive evi- dence in the case, and if the jury con- victed at all their verdict must be founded upon weak circumstantial evi- dence. And here he launched forth his argument with great power and effect upon the impropriety and great danger of fixing crime upon a party by the proof of mere circumstances so vague, uncertain and disconnected, as were here relied on by the state. Mr. Mason's argument was earnest, cogent, eloquent, skillfully dissecting the evidence, and commanding the close attention of the jury and the large audience that filled the court room. He cited from memory a number of cases where the verdicts of juries had proved erroneous, and the innocent had suffered, when relying alone upon this quality of testimony. He referred to the Bourne case in Rutland, Vt., where the two Bournes had quarreled with a neighbor, and had in a severe conflict thrown him into a cellar and fled. The neigh- bor not appearing the next day, the inference was the Bournes had killed their victim and secreted his body. The Bournes were tried, con- victed, and sentenced to be hung. But a short time before the execution was to take place, the supposed dead man appeared in Rutland alive.
Again to show the danger of resort- ing to this kind of testimony, he quot- ed the case in England where two men met, when excited by angry, malicious feelings, in a retired place and fought ; one being armed with a pitchfork killed the other and left the dead body and the bloody pitchfork near it, and re- turned to his home. A third party passing that way, soon afterward, finds the dead body and pitchfork, and takes it away with him. He is found with the bloody pitchfork in his possession, is tried for the murder, convicted, and hung. The guilty man upon his death- bed confesses the crime, but too late.
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