Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-06-24

viii converge upon the defendants object
in entering that hotel. and what occurred
Immediately afterwards. The doubt is as
TO who began that attack. We shall en-
deayor by all the lights we can employ to
show you, what the prosecution has not
shown, and that is, what occurred
when Harlan first entered the hotel.
We claim as part of this defense. TO be
stated here, but not argued, that we have a
part of our defense in the evidence adduced
by the prosecution. We shall. with addi-
tional evidence, resolve that doubt in your
minds as to which CT the two was most
likely TO commence the attack and second,
which of them, in fact, did commence it.
We cannot in advance tell you what the
evidence will be in its entirety, but we
will simply outline it. We state, then,
WHAT WE EXPECT To PROVE
As we are instructed, and then we shall
eDdeayor TO state what occurred at Byrns
Hotel.
t-Uncommunicated threats. tending
10 establish hostility by deceased toward de-
PENDANT, and She dding light upon temper
and disposition with which he first saw de-
PENDANT at the hotel, when he was sitting
on the bootblack stand
Second = Communicated threats, for the
purpose of proving what defendant had a
right to expect when he encountered de-
ceased under the circumstances, which will
be detailed to you by witnesses.
Third-Preparation by deceased for a
hostile encounter with defendant, both in
the way of arming himself at Sacramento.
where his business was, and in the way of
seeking for defendant in Woodland
Fourth-Provocation, consisting of
words, coupled with acts. and following in
one steady course until the catastrophe
occurred
Fifth = That the attack at the Byrns
Hotel was actually commenced by deceased,
and that defendant acted as the law author
lied him to act upon that occasion, and IN
der the facts and circumstances as they will
be proven. will say in behalf of the de-
Tense that we shall avoid all unnecessary
attack upon the deceased that we shall, to
the fullest practical extent, respect his
memory and the natural feelings of his
surviving relatives.
REPUTATION Is A SACRED THING,
And to all right-minded men the memory
of deceased person is sacred. We shall
remember this fact, and our references to
this young man, who was cut off in the
flower of his youth and beauty, will be
delicate and restrained. | remember that
the philosophical Wordsworth, in pas
sage which might have gained for him an
immortal reputation, referring to coarse
untruths and gross breaches upon the sane
titles of domestic life to which we have
lately been more and more accustomed,
added:
Silence is privilege of the graye-a right of
the departed. Let him, therefore. who infringeS
that rightly speaking publicly of, for or against
those who cannot speak for themselves, take
heed that he NOT his month without n
sufficient sanction.
We shall obey this injunction, and if the
proceedings of this trial should wander
outside of the precise issue and involve
questions which are wholly outside the
present investigation, blame shall not justly
be attached to the defense, and | do not an
ticipate that it can be Justly attached to the
prosecution. We shall endeavor openly,
manfully and completely to defend the
living, but we shall not wantonly invade
the sanctuary of the dead. or add one pang
to the sorrow which must be rooted in the
breasts of his surviving relative.
Self-defense is the most fundamental and
inalienable right human being can pos
sess. 1t was promised US in the Declaration
of Independence, secured to us in the Con-
stitution, shared by all men from the high
est and greatest to the lowest and smallest,
Sildreu ny every dHiiuai ihdl eAiSto oii lIie
earth, and every bird that futters in the
air. The law of self-defense is the law of
nature.
Counsel spoke of deceased having long
known defendants daughter, and some
time prior to the alleged homicide had been
attached to her; that he was most anxious
to marry her, while as result she married
a rival and in fact was married before the
homicide. He then reviewed the threats
made by Craft, both in Sacramento and
Woodland, as detailed at the Coroner's in
vestigation and heretofore published in the
RECORD UNION. The threats extended to
Harlan, his daughter, her husband and, in
fact, the entire Harlan family. He also re-
ferred to base ISLANDERS that had been in
dulged in, and reference to alleged letters
which it was asserted were in the hand
writing OF Harlan's daughter. On the day
of the homicide Harlan came, counsel
claimed, to Woodland with his family to
attend church, it being ON Sunday, and not
for the purpose of hunting up and shoot
ing Craft.
And that. think, gentlemen, in cold
statement brings me to the end of my
story Except that we shall show you as
a matter of fact that Harlan did not coldly
and deliberately, and Indignantly, and
diabolically, walk the distance OF twenty
feet and mutilate the person of the deceased
TO crafty his revenge or his hatred, but
that there was one consecutive ARRAY there,
commenced by the deceased himself, in
which the defendant acted exactly accord
ing to law and according to sense, and that
deceased had delivered a shot Immediately
before the last shot was fired, and in the
view and presence of Harlan was then and
there struggling to deliver another; that he
exercised exactly the degree of force, al
though man is not bound by arithmetical
or geometrical rules on such occasions, but
that, nevertheless, under the circumstances
which surrounded him there, he exer-
cised exactly that degree of force which
was essential to accomplish the result,
which he was legally entitled, under the
circumstances which there prevailed, to ac-
complish.
At the afternoon session c. S. Wheeler
and ex-senator Glascock testified that Craft
lived several minutes after he fell to the
floor, and some twenty prominent citizens
testified that Harlan's reputation for peace