At the time it was rendered, the verdict was accepted as a foregone conclusion.

To-day the case is commonly cited as proof of the gullibility of juries and of the impossibility of convicting a rich man of a crime.
There will always be some persons who think that every defendant should be convicted and feel aggrieved if he is turned out by the jury.

Yet they entirely forget, in their displeasure at the acquittal of a man whom they instinctively "know" to be guilty, that the jury probably had exactly the same impression, but were obliged under their oaths to acquit because of an insufficiency of evidence.
An excellent illustration of such a case is that of Nan Patterson.

She is commonly supposed to have attended, upon the night of her acquittal, a banquet at which one of her lawyers toasted her as "the guilty girl who beat the case." Whether she was guilty or not, there is a general impression that she murdered Caesar Young.

Yet the writer, who was present throughout the trial, felt at the conclusion of the case that there was a fairly reasonable doubt of her guilt.