Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 June 1884 — The Copiah County Jury. [ARTICLE]

The Copiah County Jury.

In view of the circumstances surrounding the recent trial of Wheeler, in Copiah County, Mississippi, for the murder of Matthews, because he attempted to vote the Republican ticket last November, the manifesto which has been published by the jury, who brought in a verdict of not gui ty, will sound to the vast tnajority of people outside of Copiah County as little less than blasphemous. According to this manifesto, the jury achieved its remarkable verdict in a truly religious manner, and is inclined to believe it has done a religious duty, inasmuch as it opened and closed its sessions with prayer! If it were not too serious a subject, this attempt to ally the Almighty with the Copiah County Bourbon murderers and to assume His sanction for one of the most infamous crimes ever committed would be ludicrous. It would incline one to ask what kind of a God is worshiped in Copiah County, arid it is certainly not unnatural to ask what kind of views are held in that delectable locality as to the d.vine functions. In ether sections, if jurors pray at all, they are not in the habit of praying that they may be able to acquit murderers in the face of positive evidence of guilt, and in the Copiah affair prayer was superfluous, as they would have acquitted Wheeler if they had not prayed at all, and thus might have spared themselves the necessity of their blasphemous exhibition in letting a murderer go free, with the additional grotesque spectacle of praying for him and appealing for divine blessing upon their own outrageous conduct.* There is but one thing that people want to know in a manifesto of this kind, and that is, why the jury did not convict Wheeler. To ere was no question as to the facts in the ease. Distort the evidence as they might, it pointed unerringly to Wheeler as the murderer of Matthews. The testimony was not disputed that Wheeler deliberately killed his victim because he tried to vote the Republican ticket. It showed no offense on Matthews’ part. It re* vealed no personal enmities betwcjpn the two men; on the other hand, it showed that Wheeler had enjoyed Matthews’ hospitality only a few days before the murder; and considered him his friend. Tber&was not a scintilla of trndqpee to show that it was not a cowardly, brutal murder, deliberately

planned in a Council of Bourbons wßich commissioned Wheeler to kill Matthews if he attempted to vote. Instead of impudently and blasphemously posing before the country as twelve men-wlxt had acted under divine guidance and inspiration, the entire twelvo ought to be shut up in a pemtent ary lo: willfully and deliberately maltreating justice. —Exc h a nge.