Josiah quincy boston massacre 1770

May it please your Honours, and you Gentlemen of the Jury. To these indictments, the prisoners have severally pleaded Not Guilty: and for their trial have put themselves on God and their country; which country you are. And by their pleas, thus severally pleaded, they are to stand or fall, by the evidence, which shall respectively apply to them.

By their plea of Not Guilty, they throw the burden of proof, as to the fact of killing, upon the Crown; but, upon which being proved, the matters, they allege to justify, excuse, or extenuate, must be adduced by them, and supported by legal evidence.

The truth of the facts, they may thus alledge, is your sole and undoubted province to determine; but upon a supposition, that those facts shall appear to your satisfaction, in the manner we alledge, the grand question then to be determined, will be, whether, such matters so proved, do in law extenuate, excuse, or justify.

The decision of this question, belongs to another department; namely, the Court. It may not be amiss, however, to assure you, that as certain as the cognizance of facts is within your jurisdiction, as certain does the law, resulting from these facts, in cases of the present kind, seem to reside solely in the Court: unless cases where juries, under the direction of the Court, give general verdicts, may be denominated exceptions.

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I take it, that, in the cause now before us, it will not be contested, that five persons were unfortunately killed, at the time the indictments charge; and this case will naturally enough divide itself, into three main divisions of enquiry.