Chapter II: The Judge States His First Case

May it please your authority [began the judge in his best legal manner as he turned over the pages of the minute-book and placed his finger on a page] the case I am about to put before you is one of quite recent occurrence. It deals with one of the most brutal, one of the most indefensible, murders that have ever come under my observation.

Furthermore, it was characterized by an entire absence on the part of the public at large of that misguided, but often quite honest, sympathy for murderers which leads people to sign futile petitions for a reprieve or a stay of execution. Of the petitions on behalf of convicted murderers in America I cannot speak, nor can I say how many persons are sentenced to death in the United States on an average during a year; but an official return lately furnished by the Home Office of the British Government states that the average annual number of persons sentenced to death in England and Wales is about twenty-five. Of that number about fourteen are actually hanged.

The reasons for reprieving the others are various. It may be that the petitions so diligently, but so thoughtlessly, issued for public signature have some slight influence. It may be that the generosity of the Home Secretary, or the pusillanimity of some other official, is at work in favor of those who escape the scaffold. It is not my prerogative in the present circumstances to inquire into, or to explain, this. I merely mention these figures in order to emphasize that not a single petition was issued, not a solitary protest was made, not a word was uttered, so far as I am aware, to stay the hand of the law's sentence on Ammar Baddan.

There was no question about his guilt. It is true his counsel formally entered a plea of "not guilty," but from the very beginning of the case to the very end that plea never had a leg to stand on. It was, indeed, negatived by the prisoner himself, and his words when he was asked (as is always done) if he had anything to say before sentence was passed on him, indicated the casual attitude he adopted to the end. These are his words, written in this minute-book:

"I do not care for your sentence. I do not care for your law. It was my wife who got the lawyer. I despise him and his tricks. It is true I killed John Hamlin. Why do I say this? You are fools who do not understand. But I know what the Book of Wisdom says and by that