Page:Letters of Junius, volume 2 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/133

Rh charge to the jury, in the prosecution against Almon and Woodfall, contradicts the highest legal authorities, as well as the plainest dictates of reason. In Miller's case, and still more expressly in that of Baldwin, you have proceeded a step farther, and grossly contradicted yourself.—You may know perhaps, though I do not mean to insult you by an appeal to your experience, that the language of truth is uniform and consistent. To depart from it safely, requires memory and discretion. In the last two trials, your charge to the jury began, as usual, with assuring them that they had nothing to do with the law,—that they were to find the bare fact, and not concern themselves about the legal inferences drawn from it, or the degree of the defendant's guilt.—Thus far you were consistent with your former practice.—But how will you account for the conclusion? You told the jury, that "if, after all, they would take upon