The Supreme Court of Maine. Howard A. Cleveland was indicted and tried for the murder of Warren George, at the February term, 1869, of the Supreme Ju dicial Court, at Bangor. The jury returned a verdict of " guilty of the murder whereof he stands indicted. " At a subsequent term of the court, Cutting, J., presiding, he sen tenced Cleveland to be hanged for murder in the first degree. The statute then provided that such a sentence should not be executed until the expiration of a year from the time it was passed. Before the expiration of the year it was ordered by the executive coun cil that the justices be required to give their opinion upon the question whether the jury by their verdict had found Cleveland guilty of murder in the first degree. In answer to this request he submitted the following reply : — "At the trial I did not preside, but at a subsequent term, after all objections as to the prior rulings and findings had been waived, on motion of the attorney-general, as the judge presiding, I was required to pronounce the sentence of the law. There upon I examined the record of the former conviction, on the exhibition of which I found that the prisoner had been indicted for murder in the first degree, and that the verdict of the jury was that he was ' guilty of the murder whereof he stands charged. ' "I was aware of the statute which requires ' the jury, finding a person guilty of murder, to find whether he is guilty of murder in the first or second degree.' I then and still en tertain the opinion that the finding of the jury was a strict compliance of the statute, that it was a finding of murder in the first degree, of which the prisoner stood charged. A further finding would have been superflu ous. To the judicial mind all arguments to the contrary must be considered as poor logic, and adverse to adjudications in the highest courts in this country. If there be any decisions to the contrary, the finding, ' as stands charged ' was no part of the rec ord. But whether my conclusion was right
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or wrong, I pronounced the sentence, and the judgment and record of the court was made accordingly, and that judgment must stand as the guidance of the executive until removed on a writ of error, as prescribed by statute. "Neither the prisoner nor his counsel has seen fit to claim such a process, upon which alone, if error was committed, could redress be had after a hearing of both parties. "Now I would respectfully suggest to the council asking my opinion, whether there is any statute or law constituting them a court for the hearing of errors in criminal matters. If they answer in the affirmative, then they assume judicial powers and usurp jurisdiction in the last resort, in all cases of misdemeanors and felonies, whenever there shall be a peti tion presented for a pardon. Jonas Cutting." During the last seven years of his life I was his daily companion, and became impressed with his simplicity of character, — using the word in its highest and best sense. A neighbor and intimate friend said of him in this respect that this predominating faculty was conspicuous in all his public and pri vate life. It affects him through and through. It would naturally follow that he was an honest man. His integrity was free from all spot or taint. He was an honest man in the liberal sense of the term; that is, he was an unselfish man, and coveted nothing not his own. He was satisfied with what he had and what he was. He was a sincere man : there were no false sides, equivoca tions, duplicities, or shams about him. He had no great patience with falsehood in any of its forms, anywhere; and upon tempting occasions, where any wrong was to be re buked, could be plain-spoken and severe. I am glad of the opportunity to reproduce what his life-long friend, Judge Kent, said of him in this respect when he came to place the last solemn tribute to his memory upon the bier of the dead judge. He said : — "This genuine and unadulterated integ
