rdict, whether that verdict be to unlock the prison
doors and set at liberty these men, or whether it be to inflict the
highest punishment for the crime with which they are charged, you
can go out into the world with a passport of duty done which will
be an honor to you through all the future of your lives. Each of
you has said under your oaths that you would try this case upon the
law and the evidence--that you would render a verdict based
exclusively upon the law and the evidence; that you would not be
controlled by public opinion; that you would not be governed by
anything other than the evidence in the case; no matter how much
regard you may have for public opinion, no matter how much we may
feel that oftentimes public opinion is right, yet you as jurors are
sworn to try this case on the evidence and the law, and to render a
verdict based upon it exclusively. You answered that you would try
this case fairly and impartially. Fair and impartial verdicts mean
verdicts not only fair to one side, but to both sides of a case on
trial. Too often jurors and courts and even prosecutors, in their
anxiety to be fair toward men on trial, step over the line of duty,
and criminals go unpunished and the law becomes a farce. While I
want you to give these men a fair and impartial trial; while we
desire that you give them the benefit of everything the law in its
wise provisions enables you to give, in your anxiety to be fair
don't step over the line of duty and do an injustice to the people
of this great State. You have said that before you would convict
any man on trial in this case you would want the people to prove
that he is guilty beyond a doubt--a reasonable doubt; that you
would require the State to make out the case from the witness
stand; and that you would respect the provisions of the law that
says every man is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty; that
you would not convict any man unless you were satisfied of his
guilt from the evidence. But, let me say, the presumption of
innocence is not evidence in the case, and when you hear of that
presumption all the way through this case understand that it is not
evidence.

"While the law presumes every man innocent until proven guilty, yet
it is not such a presumption as to rebut evidence. Presumption