Report of the Case of John W. Webster: ... Indicted for the Murder of George Parkman ... Before the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts; Including the Hearing on the Petition for a Writ of Error, the Prisoner's Confessional Statements and Application for a Commutation of Sentence, and an Appendix Containing Several Interesting Matters Never Before Published |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
accused afternoon appear arrest asked Attorney Bemis blood body bones Boston called Cambridge charge Chief Justice circumstances Clapp clerk committed Commonwealth conviction coroner's counsel crime Cross-examined death defendant disappearance Doctor door doubt East Cambridge entry evidence examined execution fact Francis Parkman Friday furnace Gentlemen George Parkman Government grand jury guilty half-past hand homicide human indictment inquiry interview John W judgment jurisdiction jurors laboratory lecture lecture-room letter Littlefield malice malice aforethought manslaughter Medical College ment Monday morning Municipal Court murder never nitric acid November o'clock officers party person Pettee present prisoner private room privy proceedings Professor Webster proof proved question recollect remains Saturday saw Dr seen sentence sheriff Sohier stairs statute street Suffolk supposed Supreme Judicial Court sworn tea-chest teeth testified testimony thorax tion told took trial Tuesday vault Winslow Lewis witness writ of error
Popular passages
Page 456 - All the laws, which have heretofore been adopted, used and approved in the province, colony or state of Massachusetts Bay, and usually practised on in the courts of law, shall still remain and be in full force until altered or repealed by the legislature ; such parts only excepted as are repugnant to the rights and liberties contained in this constitution.
Page 512 - All writs, issuing out of the clerk's office in any of the courts of law, shall be in the name of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts...
Page 556 - April next, and that, at two o'clock in the afternoon of that day, you be taken thence to the place of execution, and there be hanged by the neck till you are dead! dead! dead ! And may the Almighty God have mercy on your soul...
Page 2 - Lightfoot then and there instantly died, and so the jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, do say, that the said David Beckett, the said John Lightfoot, in manner and form aforesaid, feloniously, wilfully, and of his malice aforethought, did kill and murder...
Page 234 - The evidence must be such as to exclude, to a moral certainty, every hypothesis but that of his guilt of the offense imputed to him ; or, in other words, the facts proved must all be consistent with and point to his guilt not only, but they must be inconsistent with his innocence.
Page 2 - ... with force and arms, at the parish aforesaid, in the county aforesaid, in and upon one JM, in the peace of God and of the commonwealth then and there being, feloniously, wilfully, and of his malice aforethought, did make an assault, and that the said...
Page 232 - Juries have been told from the bench, even in capital cases, that, ' where a violent presumption necessarily arises from circumstances, they are more convincing and satisfactory than any other kind of evidence, because 'facts cannot lie'.
Page 220 - . . . [W]here upon words of reproach, or indeed any other sudden provocation, the parties come to blows, and a combat ensues, no undue advantage being taken or sought on either side: if death ensue, this amounts to manslaughter. And here it matters not what the cause be, whether real or imagined, or who draws or strikes first; provided the occasion be sudden, and not urged as a cloak for pre-existing malice.
Page 217 - Express malice is when one, with a sedate deliberate mind and formed design, doth kill another : which formed design is evidenced by external circumstances discovering that inward intention; as lying in wait, antecedent menaces, former grudges, and concerted schemes to do him some bodily harm.
Page 499 - Every person who shall commit the crime of murder shall suffer the punishment of death for the same," yet it nowhere defines the crimes of murder or manslaughter, with all their minute and carefullyconsidered distinctions and qualifications. For these, we resort to that great repository of rules, principles, and forms, the common law. This we commonly designate as the common law of England...