Connecticut western news., 1878-05-23


 factory, although it would be direct evi- dence, and entitled to your consideration as such. If, on the other hand. the evidence came from an intelligent witness, who gave no chance for being mistaken ss to the identity of the person; if he should be an honest witness; if his testimony should sat isfy you that he was there to tell what he saw and tell it correctly, it might be entire ly sa,istactOry-perhapst the most satlsfac
 tory evidence that you could have. But, Gentlemen, as you all know, men do not go about for the perpetration ot crime, calling witnesses to see what they are about to do, or do such things in the presence of wit, pesses who will come into the court of Jus tice and testify to the commission of the crime. Crimes are secret. and the commu- nifty would be exposed to murder, assassina- ton and crimes of every possible kind and description If 1t were not in the power of the Courts of Justice to detect and ferret out crime where there is no direct evidence. A resort to circumslantial evidence, there tore, which, in itself is SO strong. Com mission of the offence is a necessity in the administration of justice; and it may be of such character and SO conclusive as 10 of- fer to you the best possible evidence of the commission of the crime, coming from in- dependent sources, from different witness. es testifying to different collateral circum- stances connected with the particular fact from different standpoints, all concentrat- ing, involving to perjury of an immense number of disconnected witnesses, if you would disbelieve the fact, and then with cir cumstances enough bearing upon the fact to make you believe that those circumstan- ces could not exist consistently with the in- nocence of the party charged, you may have a mass of testimony that would estab- fish far more satisfactorily to you than any direct testimony that could be produced. In the grand procession of human events ev- cry one fact that transpires is connected more or less intimately with every other, which is the pro. duct of the causes that preceded it, which stand related in the relation of cause and effect to each event that follows it, and hu
 man events and human affairs are related tC each other as a vast and intricate complies
 ted web. You Can no more take out one set of facts from this web than you car take from this carpet piece of it and no
 oe able to match the event to it's surround
 ings, as you would be to match the carpe
 to the place from which it was taken. Int coincidents which connect human affairs and human affairs are physical and they are moral. The weight which you attacl to these coincidents is the weight which | from your experience as men in the man
 agement of the affairs. you know should b.
 attached to such events. They are physic
 al coincidents; they gre also morale coinci
 dents. You have right to judge of {
 mans conduct from V hat you know of hu.
 man nature. and of the moral ruotivet
 which influence human conduct. Yo,
 have a right to consider thst men, whel
 they have no te.uptatiL ns otherwise, ordi
 narily tell tue truth. You have right t
 know that men do hot ordinarily resort t
 deception and lies. You have rightto az ply your knowledge of the fact that mel
 do not flee unless they are fleeing to escap crime. All the knowledge which you hay
 of human nature in all it's various form
 you may apply in the determlnation of tb
 question, whether upon certain facts bein
 proved in the conduct of the person charl
 ed with the offence of winch he is charged
 Some of the physical evidence is of th
 very strongest character. Thus it is propt
 for you to infer, and it is cons antly dor
 in Court of Justice, that possession by tt
 party who is in flight, of stolen goods Tt
 gently stolen, is strong evidence, une,
 plained, that he rect ived the goods as
 thief. Of course the weight of that ev
 dence depends altogether upon how recen
 ly the theft was committed, and the weigl
 of it IS very largely increased if there
 any circumstance in the conduct of the ga T ty which shows that he intended or 8
 tempted to conceal the possession of th !. stolen goods, and if he tells any falsehoc in regard to it; if he tries to conceal ]. falsehood the place where the stolen pro- erty was obtained. And as an illustratiC
 of the physical relation 10 which l have T ferred, you may take the blade of the kni , found in the prisoners possession, whie , fitted precisely the broken point of tI
 blade which was found in the heart of , victim. Or, the other common inciden where, in the wound from which the vit
 tim died, was found piece of 8 wad whiC
 proved to be the part of the ballad, Il
 counterpart of which fitted the regular SUI face of the paper where it was torn o1 , was found in the pocket of the person ir l mediately after the crime was committe There are some incidents of moral ar , physical coincidence from which ;t is u right and the duty of the jury to infer Il existence of the particular fact, althous , there may be no direct evidence to pro, the fact. Direct evidence, such az ha' described, coming from an eye witness.
 Gentlemen, it is not necessary for me
 ) dwell longer upon this subject. l ha said perhaps altogether more than is nece SdTt. IL IS lAlhluG dUuuL h WAtt , is entirely too plain. You all know wb l circumstantial evidence IS. It should l carefully weighed, and this proposition
 g wish you to carry in your mlrd: the c . cumstances surrounding fact which | 8 government may be able to prove, may. - more or less numerous; the more numero ] they are, showing their relation to the ia t to be established and tending to prove Il
 existence of the fact, of course the mo satisfactory is the evidence. But all Il I evidence so produced by the governme 3 for the purpose of convicting the prisone g must be only consistent with the guilt
 : the prisoner. If there be any other theo or hypothesis by which you can resort fro the facts to prove against the prisoner wi i. his innocence, then the prisoner is not
 l. be adjudged upon the evidence broug g against him, exclude any other hypotbes t any other theory that the prisoner is gull |. of the offence. Now Gentlemen, it ID, a be, and herein It is my duty to caution yo a that some of the facts which the gover /. ment attempt to, prove none of the in' a dents surrounding the main fact. The go g ernment may attempt to prove-the go t ernment may fail to prove to your satisfs tiop. That does not necessarily imply th q that man. therefore, the defendant, is n g guilty because you may be of the opinit l. that the fact which the government has a l. tempted to prove is not essentially necess l ry to establish the guiit. You may ,hro g out that fact and take all the other fac 1 which the government established by cor petent testimony to your satisfaction, al s still conclude that the prisoner is guilty
 the offence charged; but you must tal l. careful, mild consideration after having si ted from the governments case all the fac P which are insufficient proof, upon whit a the case relies, that there are fac ] enough of the collateral coincidents whio l. have described both physical and mora to prove that the defendant, committed u crime, and that no one else could have dol 9 it. In that way you will proceed safely