Report of the trial of Leavitt Alley : indicted for the murder of Abijah Ellis, in the Supreme judicial court of Massachusetts / reported by Franklin Fiske Heard.

Alley, Leavitt

Date:: 1875

Credit: Report of the trial of Leavitt Alley : indicted for the murder of Abijah Ellis, in the Supreme judicial court of Massachusetts / reported by Franklin Fiske Heard. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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$Judge Wells. I do withdraw it, if you consider it in that light. 31r. Somerhy. I am glad that your Honor has withdrawn it, though I wished it had been done at an earlier stage of the case. Mr. Somerhy, again addressing the jury: Then I am glad to hear-it from the Court of Massachusetts, and from one of the most accomplished judges of that Court, that a man is not less thought of because he came from New Hampshire. Gentlemen, no one in the State of Massachusetts, I trust, can ever forget that the exalted position she now occupies and has occupied as the great leading State of this Union, in what- ever of loyalty and power she may possess, is due, in a great measure, to the transcendent ability and heroic exertions of her adopted son, her champion and former Senator in Congress: Daniel Webster was born in New Hampshire. Nor that he who shed a light upon the pathway of jurispru- dence which never was equalled and can never be excelled, who possessed in the highest degree all the qualities which dis- tinguish men of great original strength, breadth, and vigor, came from the State of New Hampshire. I need not say I mean Jeremiah Mason, who stood, not only in this State, but in the whole country, without a peer, the acknowledged head and front of the Profession. Nor can I forget that he who now looks kindly upon us [pointing to the marble bust of Mr. Justice Wilde], once by his living presence graced and dignified this very Bench, by all that learning, experience, and fearlessness could do in the discharge of its duties, and that the rights of every person, however humble and obscure, when charged with the commission of a capital crime, were secure in his hands and were faithfully protected and defended : ^ Judge Wilde came from the neigh- boring State of Maine. [The life of Alley from his boyhood in New Hampshire was then reviewed, and the idea scouted that a man of his age would have murdered Ellis fur the '$200 or $100 he might have liad in his pocket.] 1 Referring to tlie well-known dissenting opinion in tlie case of Common- wealth V. York, 9 Met. *J3; Bennett & Heard's Lead. Crim. Cases, Vol. I. p. o1\L.$