Would the jury say that this retributive justice, inflicted by an outraged, and deluded woman, rendered irrational by the most cruel wrongs, was in the nature of a foul, premeditated murder?
"Gentlemen; it is enough for me to look upon the life of this most beautiful and accomplished of her sex, blasted by the heartless villainy of man, without seeing, at the-end of it; the horrible spectacle of a gibbet.
Gentlemen, we are all human, we have all sinned, we all have need of mercy.

But I do not ask mercy of you who are the guardians of society and of the poor waifs, its sometimes wronged victims; I ask only that justice which you and I shall need in that last, dreadful hour, when death will be robbed of half its terrors if we can reflect that we have never wronged a human being.

Gentlemen, the life of this lovely and once happy girl, this now stricken woman, is in your hands." The jury were risibly affected.

Half the court room was in tears.

If a vote of both spectators and jury could have been taken then, the verdict would have been, "let her go, she has suffered enough." But the district attorney had the closing argument.