_Q._ Have you formed or expressed an opinion whether the facts charged, if proved, amount to piracy? _A._ I should not consider myself competent to form an opinion upon that until I have heard the law on the subject. Challenge withdrawn. _Juror sworn._ Panel completed. DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OPENING. MR. E. DELAFIELD SMITH opened the case for the prosecution. He said: _May it please the Court, and you, Gentlemen of the Jury_: The Constitution of the United States, in the eighth section of the first article, authorized the Congress, among other things, to define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offences against the law of nations. In pursuance of that authority, the Congress, on the 30th of April, 1790, made provisions contained in an act entitled "An Act for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States." I refer to the 8th and 9th sections of that act, which is to be found in the first volume of the U.S. Statutes at Large, page 112. In the State Courts, gentlemen, it is common to say that the jury is judge both of the law and the fact; but such is not the case in the United States Courts. The Court will state to you the law, which you are morally bound to follow. But in opening this case, I refer to the statutes for the purpose of showing you precisely what the law is supposed to be under which this indictment is found, and under which we shall ask you for a verdict. The 8th section of the act of 1790, commonly called "The Crimes Act," and to which I have just referred, declares, that if any person or persons shall commit, upon the high seas, or in any river, haven, basin, or bay, out of the jurisdiction of any particular State, murder or robbery, or any other offence which, if committed within the body of a county, would, by the laws of the United States, be punishable with death; or if any captain or mariner of any ship or other vessel shall piratically and feloniously run away with such ship or vessel, or any goods or merchandize to the value of fifty dollars, or yield up such ship or vessel voluntarily to any pirate; or if any seaman shall lay violent hands upon his commander, thereby to hinder and prevent his fighting in defence of his ship or goods committed to his trust, or shall make a revolt in the ship; every such offender shall be deemed, taken, and adjudged to be a pirate and felon, and, being thereof convicted, shall suffer death; and the trial of crimes committed on the high seas, or in any place out of the jurisdiction of any particular State, shall be in the district where the offender is apprehended, or into which he may first be brought.