I had prepared a very elaborate and exhaustive argument in favour of the prisoner, on the law, and had little doubt I could secure his acquittal; but the facts were terribly strong, and we knew well enough if the jury convicted, Campbell would hang the prisoner, for he never tolerated murder.

My greatest delight, perhaps, was the obtaining an acquittal of some one whose guilt nobody could doubt.

I felt bound to direct an acquittal; and I confess I was not sorry to come to that conclusion, for it would have been a sad thing had the prisoner been convicted of an offence committed in a moment of such great and not unnatural excitement, and one for which penal servitude must have been awarded.

Some prelates exhorted him to resign his see, on condition of receiving an acquittal: others were of opinion that he ought to submit himself entirely to the king’s mercy

When Opimius was arraigned for 'perduellio,' or misuse of his official power to compass the death of a citizen, they procured his acquittal.

We are well aware that the laws in question are intended for the distribution of equal justice, yet we have too often witnessed the acquittal of delinquents whom we can denominate by no other title than that of homicides, while the simple affirmation of others has been admitted (in default of testimony) who are themselves the authors of the deed, for which they stand in judgment.

In order to avoid the sentence that would have followed an acquittal on the ground of insanity, which would have entailed perhaps lifelong imprisonment, I took upon myself to depart from the usual course, and ask the jury whether, without being insane in the ordinary sense, the woman might not have been at the time of committing the deed in so excited a state as not to know what she was doing.

Between April 6 and September 21, 1793, it rendered sixty-three sentences of death, thirteen of transportation, and thirty-eight acquittals.

When a settler refused to exchange his wife or daughter with an Indian for a pony, and that Indian massacred the whole family to repair his wrongs, his Quaker lawyer justified the act on the score of extreme provocation, and won triumphal acquittal from the jury of the world.

So wretched is my situation, that I cannot accept your gratuitous acquittal, if you should be disposed to bestow it.

Like a skilful leader who gathers all his exhausted squadrons when he sees the crisis of battle approaching, the great advocate seemed now to summon every overtaxed power of body and spirit to his aid, as he felt that the moment was come when he must wring an acquittal from the hearts of his hearers.

This was a subject of unbounded triumph to his adherents, who celebrated his acquittal by the most public marks of rejoicing.

This has been the subject of much complaint on the part of the public; still a man may condemn such acquittals and when placed on a jury will himself vote for acquittal.

It was in this way that he effected the acquittal of Tirrell, whom any matter-of-fact lawyer, however able, would have argued straight to the gallows; and yet we have the highest judicial authority for saying that in that case he did his simple technical duty, without interposing his own opinions or convictions.

Cato sat on the jury, and did all he could to insure an acquittal, showing openly his voting-paper to his fellow jurors, with that scorn of the "liberty of silence" which he shared with Cicero.

I may pity him, and cherish toward him the spirit of forgiveness; but for his own sake, for the order of the household, and on account of my innate sense of justice, I must not pronounce his acquittal, nor declare the controversy ended, until he shall have satisfied my governmental authority, and the sentiment of justice which both his own conscience and mine, constitutionally, and therefore by necessity, cherish.

Grenville and the ministry would have agreed to adjourn the debate on the great question itself, but declared they would push this acquittal.