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 / by George Bemis.
- Webster, John White, 1793-1850.
- Date:
- 1850
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: 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 / by George Bemis. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
46/662
![or instruments, and in some mode or manner, to the jury un- known, did deprive Dr. Parkman of life. If you are satis- fied that these mutilated remains, were those of Dr. Parkman, and that he came to his death at the hands of Dr. Webster ; then, although there may not be a particle of proof of the mode in which the homicide was perpetrated, it will be no less your duty to return a verdict of guilty upon the fourth count of the indictment, than it would be to return the same verdict upon the first count, if it were directly proved that he came to his death by a stab with a knife. This is the view taken by the Government, and the Court will instruct you whether it is a correct one. We should be living under a code of law, which, in our state of intelligence and civilization, would reproach us, more than many of the barbarous customs of heathen nations can reproach them, if, by his scientific skill, a murderer could conceal the mode in which he compassed and consummated the death of his victim, and a jury, being satisfied of the act of killing, should still find that the law was too weak to reach him, because the mode or instrument of death was not set out in the indictment. Such, we maintain, is not the law of Massachusetts. If you are satisfied that Dr. Parkman came to his death, in any manner, by the voluntary act of the pris- oner, then the case is to be determined by the rule of law, which we understand to be settled in this Commonwealth ; namely, — that a voluntary killing being proved, it is held to be murder, unless there is evidence arising out of the whole case, satisfactory to the jury, upon a preponderance of proof, that the act was committed either in necessary self-defence, or under such provocation, as reduces the offence to manslaugh- ter : —the provocation, however, extending to blows, and not consisting in words merely, of however irritating or exaspe- rating a character. In other words, we understand it to be the established rule of law, — and I respectfully submit, may it please Your Hon- ors, [here the Attorney General turned and addressed the Bench,] in a case of secret killing,—upon the unanimous judgment of this Court, that if a voluntary killing be shown, the presumption of law, is, that it is murder, unless the evi- dence produced by the Government, or that furnished by the defendant, proves circumstances of mitigation accompa- nying the killing, which reduce it to a lesser offence.* * The Attorney General was here understood to refer to the case of Com- monwealth v. York, 9 Met. 93, in which His Honor, Judge Wilde, who dis- sented from his associates upon other points, concurred with them, (at least](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21163194_0046.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
