mary surratt. who took the binoculars to surrattsville on april 14th so they could be used in the assassin's escape? mary surratt. who drove four hours back and forth from surrattsville on two trips paid for by john wilkes booth to provide important messages to john lloyd? mary surratt. who told john lloyd to make sure the guns and ammunition were ready for someone would be coming the night of april 14th? mary surratt. whose home did co-conspirator lewis powell go to on april 17th seeking refuge while he was running for his life? mary surratt. who lied to the police about not knowing powell? who lied to you today? who is guilty of the conspiracy charge in this case? we ask you to return a verdict consistent with all of the evidence in this case, a verdict of guilty. thank you very much. >> may it please the court. >> mr. johnson. >> ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the judge will tell you in his closing remarks and his instructions that mary surratt is presumed innocent. the judge will tell you th

on and secretary of state seward were planned in part at a boarding house owned and operated by mary surratt. after president lincoln's assassination mary sur rat was taken into custody and accused of participating in the conspiracy. she was tried by a military tribunal where shefgs not given the opportunity to testify and later sentenced to death and executed. coming up, a group of chicago lawyers, judges, and historians retry mary surratt as if in a civilian court and leaves it up to the audience to decide whether she is guilty or innocence. this lasts about an hour and a half. >> the law is a living, breathing entity. it reflected the values of the 19th century society and continues to reflect those values today. ideally, the law treats everyone equally and justice, the implementation of the law, is blind favoring neither the prosecution nor the defense. at other times justice is not only blind but deaf, stubborn, frightened, and reactionary as well. this retrial is based on an actual historical episode. we always like to ponder what if. what if the people who plotted the assassination of

but there were people like john wilkes booth and mary surratt and their co-conspirators who are confederate sympathizers and former slave owners. people like mary's son, john jr., who in march of 1865 along with two other conspirators, david herald and john atzerodt, brought weapons to the home of mary surratt in surrattsville. and they hid them there a month before the assassination. people like lewis powell who went by the name of reverend wood or lewis payne, who was passed along with david herald to kill secretary of state william seward. and they came pretty close. lewis powell clubbed the son of the secretary of state and stabbed the secretary of state repeatedly around the face and was only the fact that he had a broken jaw and the splint on his jaw prevented powell from decapitating him. people like david herald who i mentioned. these -- and george atzerodt. george atzerodt was unable, was unsuccessful in killing andrew johnson, but he did rent a room on the same floor of the same hotel as andrew johnson in preparation for doing it. so these people were driven with hate to murder. b