Without making any direct
charge, and disclaiming any intent to prejudice the prisoner and
his defense, or to deprive him of any safeguard of the law, he
was able to convey the impression that he had been misled in
undertaking the defense of the case; that his confidence in the
innocence of the accused had been removed by unquestionable
evidence which he had been led to believe did not exist.
He made this explanation with profound regret. But he felt that,
having been induced to undertake the defense by representations
not justified in fact, and by an impression of the nature of the
case which developments in the court-room had not confirmed, he
had the right to step aside out of an equivocal position. He
wished to do this without injury to the prisoner and while there
was yet an opportunity for him to obtain other counsel. The
whole tenor of the speech was the right to be relieved from the
obligation of an error; an error that had involved him
unwittingly by reason of assurances which the developments of the
case had now set aside. And through it all there was the
manifest wish to do the prisoner no vestige of injury.
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