Page:The "Trial" of Ferrer - A Clerical Judicial Murder (IA 2916970.0001.001.umich.edu).pdf/25

 the rest? The Code of Military Justice provides4 that: "Separate pieces will be formed only; 1st, when there come up incidents which must be resolved without paralyzing the course of the principal action; 2nd, when some of the ac- cused are present and others absent; 3rd, when the proofs of culpability of all the accused are not equal and the importance of the offense demands a prompt and exem- plary punishment." It could not be on account of the first or second provisions, since no incident came up and all of the accused were present. of the third, since, as was scen six months later at the hearings in the main trial, the proofs of culpability adduced against the rest of the accused were of exactly the same nature as those brought againust Ferrer. them, Ferrer included, were indicted for the same offense, viz., for being the instigators, directors and organizers of the rebellion, the "importance of the offense" was the same in all the cases. Neither could it be on account And as all of The forming of a separate piece of the prosecution against Ferrer, who had been indicted with other men and for the same causes, and who consequently ought to have been tried along with them, was therefore an unwarranted discrimination carried on in defiance of the spirit of the law. But Ferrer's enemies knew that if he were to be tried along with the others, six months later, it would have given time to Spanish public opinion to recover from the cam. paign of slander carried through by the clerical press against. Ferrer; the trial would have had to be performed in a formal, serious manner, without any distortions of the letter of the law being allowed to pass unnoticed and un- challenged; besides, the protest coming from all over Eur- ope was assuming enormous proportions and threatened at any time to oblige the Spanish Government to release Fer- Art, 403.