| OCR Text |
Show GUILTY OR NOT GUILTYf 517 " when the proper time came," with sublime coolness he came into court and told it all, still at the command of Brigham Young ! And yet there are lawyers in the East, and statesmen in Congress, who will maintain that Brigham had no control in southern Utah in 1857 ; that the massacre was done against his wish ; that he did not know of it, in fact! " Oh, judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts, And men have lost their reason." Samuel Knight and Samuel McMurdy testified to seeing Lee kill several persons; that he blew a woman's brains out, beat one man to death with a gun, and shot others; then came to the wagons and shot all the wounded men with a pistol. At this point in the testimony Lee broke down, and when remanded to his cell walked the floor a long time, cursing the Mormon leaders who, he said, had betrayed him. He knew, even before his attorney did, that the Church had decided to give him up; he had suspected this at the start, and urged his attorney to secure a few Gentiles on the jury, in the hope that they might revolt against this conspiracy. But this had proved im-possible. All the Gentiles called had heard or read of the case ; the Mormons called " had never heard of it, and had formed no opinion." For " model jurors" they could beat New York City. When the argument of counsel began, the defense had no recourse but to abuse the witnesses. Mr. Bishop took the broad ground that all those present at the massacre were equally guilty and not to be be-lieved. At noon of September 20th, Judge Boreman delivered his charge to the jury; they retired, and at 3: 30 P. M. returned into court with this verdict: BEAVER CITY, Sept. 20, 1876. We, the jurors, duly sworn and impaneled to try the case wherein John D. Lee is in-dicted for murder, do find the said John D. Lee guilty of murder in the first degree. A. M. FARNSWORTH, Foreman. By order of the Court, the Marshal brought Lee to the bar. The Court asked : " John D. Lee, have you any thing to say why the sentence of death should not be pronounced against you in accordance with the verdict of the jury?" Lee : " I have not." Court : " You, John D. Lee, prisoner at the bar, have, by the ver-dict of a jury, been found guilty of murder in the first degree. The proof was clear and positive. At the trial last year the evidences of |
