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In other states, when they try a man for his life, they cast a portion of the votes for the defendant,1 but with us the accused has not even an equal chance with the sycophants;2 nay, while we take our solemn oath at the beginning of each year that we will hear impartially both accusers and accused,
1 The reference seems to be to some custom somewhere by which in capital cases a number of the votes of the jury were at the outset of the trial given by grace to the defendant. No such custom is, so far as I know, mentioned anywhere else.
2 Isocrates, like Socrates （Plat. Apol. 37a-b）, complains that defendants on a capital charge in other states were given a better chance.
Isocrates. Isocrates with an English Translation in three volumes, by George Norlin, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1980.
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