Year: 1859

Gases are becoming quite too common


in which criminals evidently proved guilty


of murder, are convicted Of manslaughtel


only, by juries whose compassion outweighS


their sense Of justice. An instance of this


sort occurred recently in Dane county


Wisconsin. A man named Melchion Stop.


pei had been proved guilty of deliberate


murder. There was not doubt of it, but


the jury returned verdict of mansaught-


er. Judge Dixon in pronouneing sentence


according to the verdict, gave vent to his


Indignation in plain language. Address,


ing the prisoner, he said:


"You have been brought to the bar of


Justice charged with the high crime of


murder. You have had trial according


to the forms of the law, and have by a
| jury been adjuged guilty of the crime of


manslaughter in the third degree. With
the facts in your case / have nothing to do,
and such is my position that until the
present time | could express no opinion up
on them. Now however, I can do so,
without infringing upon your rights, or
those of the public. In my opin ON, if any
man was ever guilty of wilful, premeditat-
ed murder, it was you in taking the life of
John Ritmer. The proof in your case es-
tablished it clearly, positively, and beyond
reasonable doubt. 1t showed conclusively
that for days before you murdered him
you premidtated and designed doing SO.
That on the fatal Sunday night, armiDg
yourself for the bloody work with a butcher
knife, and bringing with you five or six
friends pledged to your assistance in case
of necessity, you awaited and waylaid him
on the public highway. He came, you
met, stopped and informed him, that he
must die there, as he stood that you would
stab him through and through Alone
and unprotected, he fed for his life, you
and your coadjutors pursued HMM this
race for his life he ran distance of nearly
halfa mile, he fell, you overlook, and
whilst he was fallen, Ito use your own Ian
guage) stabbed him through and through
with the butcher knife, of which he died.
All this you did withouta shadow of prov
ocation, without one circumstance TO ex-
cuse or paliate, but merely out of wicked
ness and malice of our own heart.


''Such is the brief history of this horrid
tragedy and your connection with it. 1t
can be called by no better name than mid
night assassination. Under such circum-
stances, and with such proofs, you have
been found guilty of one of the lesser de-
grees of manslaughler. As YOU are
stranger, unacquainled with our laws and
language, for your information l should
say, that the crime of murder once existed
in our laws, and was recognized in cur
courts. 1t was once even punished in Wis,
consin, but now, fear, such is no longer
the case. Criminals of your case are put
upon their trial only to be relieved from
the penalty of their crimes. If Ritmier,
the deceased, had been the owner of a ma
licious but favorite dog, and that dog had
attacked YOU in the night time and you
had killed it, and he had instituted pros
ecution against you for so doing, twelve cit
izens could probably have been found that
would sit and listen with stern indignation
at the story of such violation of his rights,
or if not that they would at least have en-
ter,aiued grave doubts of the propriety of
your conduct. But take his life in the
manner you did, the case becomes different;
it is then plain and clear that you are inno-
cent; you must be acquitted Or very slight
ly punished.


"For the offence of which you have been
convicted, the highest punishment prescrib-
ed by lay is four years in the peaitentiary.
In being obliged to pass the sentence upon
you, / feel as if every rule of reason, law
and justice is violated. The sentence of
law in your case is, that you be punished
by confinement in the State prison at hard
labor for the period of four years from this
day at noon, and that you be solitary i'm
prisoned for the first ten days of each and
every month of said term"