Illegality of the Trial of John W. Webster. Cet article n’est pas disponible.Illegality of the Trial of John W. Webster

Lysander Spooner's Opinion of the Famous Webster Case Spooner, Lysander [1808-1887]. Illegality of the Trial of John W. Webster. Boston: Published by Bela Marsh, 1850. 16 pp. with Errata sheet, often lacking in copies of this title, present. Octavo (9-1/2" x 5-3/4"). Stab-stitched pamphlet in printed wrappers. Light edgewear and stains to wrappers, wrappers detaching but secure, internally clean. $250. * Only edition. The grisly murder of Dr. John Parkman by Professor John W. Webster at Harvard Medical School was one of the most famous American crimes of the nineteenth century. Webster was convicted and hanged. Spooner, the great Boston radical, claims the trial was rigged because potential jurors who opposed capital punishment were dismissed. There is also a larger point: "[I]f the government can exclude, on account either of their opinions of feelings, any persons thus drawn by lot, the trial is no longer a trial by 'the country,' but only by a portion of the country. It is, in fact, a trial by the government, instead of 'the country,'--because it is a trial by that portion only of the country, which has been selected by the government, on account of their having no opinions or feeling different from its own" (4). McDade, The Annals of Murder 1058. …