Slavery -- United States; United States -- Politics and government -- 1849-1853
Besides, if these slaves were stolen, as is alleged, from forty-one
different masters, the whole might have been charged in different
counts in the same indictment, and the prisoner might be found guilty
upon as many of the counts as law and evidence would warrant.
So there was but one act of transportation. Even, therefore, if it were
just to charge the prisoner with the breach of two different laws for
the same act, still, as the transportation of the whole was but one, it
should have been charged only in one indictment.
See how fatal to any man must such a course of proceeding be. If the
stealing were charged in one indictment, it would be tried by one jury;
and the evidence being to a great degree the same, the whole trial
might be brought within a limited period of time. But with forty-one
indictments, there must be forty-one trials, before forty-one different
juries; for neither government nor prisoner would consent that a
jury, who had given an adverse verdict, should try another of the
cases. Now, gentlemen, I care not for the enormous expense of such a
proceeding,--ten dollars on each indictment, enuring to the benefit of
the district attorney,--
Here Mr. KEY, the district attorney, interrupted and said: If Mr. Mann
thinks I am to have ten dollars on each of these indictments, he is
mistaken; and in my argument to the jury I shall deny it.
Mr. CARLISLE. Mr. Mann is not mistaken in the general statement, that
the district attorney receives ten dollars on each indictment. He
receives ten dollars on each, until the income of his office amounts
to six thousand dollars a year. It is only when the emoluments of the
office reach that sum that he ceases to draw his ten dollars on each
indictment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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