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Show 518 WESTERN WILDS. guilt were plain, but three- fourths of the jury, from some cause, were then for your acquittal. The testimony on the present trial is mainly from witnesses who could not then be obtained. From some cause this evidence is now unsealed, and the witnesses are found ready in your case to tell what part you played in the great crime. They will hereafter have opportunity of telling what others did to aid in plan-ning and executing it. The fact that the evidence was not brought out on this trial to criminate some other leaders, does not show that such evidence does not exist. * * * According to the evidence on the former trial, the massacre seems to haye been the result of a vast conspiracy extending from Salt Lake City to the bloody field. The emigrants were hounded all along the line of travel, and no-where were the citizens permitted to give or sell them any thing to sustain life in man or animal, though they were in great need thereof. " The men who actually participated in the deed are not the only guilty parties. Although the evidence shows plainly that you were a willing participant in the massacre; yet both trials taken together show that others, and some high in authority, inaugurated and de-cided upon the wholesale slaughter of the emigrants. That slaughter took place nineteen years ago. From that time to the present term of court there has been throughout the Territory a persistent and determined opposition to any investigation of the massacre. * * * But their efforts to smother and crush out investigation were found to avail them no longer. It was impossible to longer delay when the inside facts of the conspiracy should be brought out; and they have suddenly changed their policy, and seem now to be consenting to your death. * * * The unoifending victims, though their mouths are closed in this world, will meet you at the bar of Al-mighty God, where the secrets of all hearts shall be made known. And the guilty can not avoid that tribunal. * * * In accordance with the verdict of the jury, and the law, it becomes my duty to pass the sentence of death upon you ; and in doing this the statute requires that you may have a choice, if you desire, of three different modes of execution, to- wit : by hanging, by shooting, or by beheading. If you have any choice or desire in this respect, you can now ex-press it." Lee : " I prefer to be shot." Court : " As you have made choice, and expressed it, that you be executed by being shot, it follows that such shall be the judgment of the Court. The judgment of the Court, therefore, is, that you be |
