Page:Melville Davisson Post--The Man of Last Resort.djvu/240

216 entire truth. So we have now, I judge, a complete case, together with the confession, which, I am told, will be quite proper evidence, and with such a case there can now be nothing in the way of Gilmore's conviction.”

“Nothing at all,” observed the judge, dryly, “except the Constitution of the United States of America.”

The sheriff sat down suddenly and replaced the eye-glasses on his fat nose.

“You mean,” said the prosecuting attorney, “that the prisoner cannot be put twice in jeopardy for the same offense?”

“Unless,” responded the judge, “the judicial machinery in McDowell can be held exempt from the Constitution of the State and the Constitution of the Federal Government, a conclusion,” he added, with prodigious gravity, “in which I should rather hesitate to concur upon a casual hearing. Having been once properly tried for murder, this man cannot be again tried for the same offense.”

“It has been held,” said the prosecuting attorney, “that where the first trial was procured by the fraud of the prisoner, the case