With all due respect to the honor of a man, I state that the policeman Cebollero had no participation in this horrendous crime. This is demonstrated by the evidence obtained yesterday. We have been asked about the attitude of the defense regarding the request of several Jurors to be allowed to visit their homes with a sub-marshal. The defense, if this matter had been formally raised before the Court, would hold the same opinion that it had with the other Juror, that is, trusting in the honorability of the persons who consti- tute the present Jury, the defense believes that it is a convenience in the interest of public justice to allow the Jury to be under their word of honor in their own homes, for their rest and tranquility of their most loved ones.
Albizu Campos, principal defense lawyer of Dionisio Pearson exchanges impressions with the prosecutor Marcelino Romaní. In the center observes the Lcdo. Julio Pinto Gandía, member of the Defense Corps. District Court of San Juan, March 4, 1936.
Albizu Campos comments acquittal of Dionisio Pearson
We place all our confidence in the honorability and equanimity of the Jury. We publicly proposed for this Jury the same regime of honor that we suggested for the previous Jury: that is, that in the hours that the Court is not in session, they would be allowed to retire to their homes for their rest and tranquility of their most loved ones.
Honor is the fundamental tradition of our race and has always been maintained with the millenary valor of the peoples that make up the great Ibero-American family.
The Jury as an institution has a virtue, and that is, its inde- pendence. In the exercise of that independence, the most elementary sense of responsibility can never be lacking, because this is unwavering when it comes to personal liberty, of individual liberty and of social security. This Jury with this verdict, and the Court to which it has belonged, have fulfilled a duty of justice and of patriotism.
The natural national rejoicing provoked by the acquittal of Don Dionisio Pearson should be received with another supreme national longing, as a solemn vow before the memory of the founders of our nationality: that the Porto- Ricans never be the ones to shed the blood of our brothers; that no feeling of revenge guide us and that we maintain Homeland solidarity above all passion.
El Mundo, March 19, 1936, p. 5.