Attorney and client -- Fiction; Law firms -- Fiction; Legal stories; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction
Such was the case of Angelo. No one could demonstrate it, no one could
with safety even hint at it; any charge that the court was anything but
impartial would prove a boomerang to the defense; and yet the facts
remained that the whole proceeding from start to finish had been
conducted unfairly and with illegality, that the jury had been duped and
deceived, and that the pretense that the guilty Angelo had been given an
impartial trial was a farce. Every word of the court had been an
accusation, a sneer, an acceptance of the defendant's guilt as a matter
of course, an abuse far more subversive of our theory of government than
the mere acquittal of a single criminal, for it struck at the very
foundations of that liberty which the fathers had sought the shores of
the unknown continent to gain.
Unmistakably the proceedings had been conducted throughout upon the
theory that the defendant must prove his innocence and that presumably
he was a guilty man; and this as well as his own impression that the
evidence was conclusive the judge had subtly conveyed to the jury in his
tone of speaking, his ironical manner and his facial expression. Guilty
or not Angelo was being railroaded. That was the real defense--the
defense that could never be established even in any higher court, except
perhaps in the highest court of all, which is not of earth.
And so Mr. Tutt, boiling with suppressed indignation weighed down with
the sense of his responsibility, fully realizing his inability to say
anything based on the evidence in behalf of his client, feeling twenty
years older than he had during the verbal duel of the actual
cross-examination, rose with a genial smile upon his puckered old face
and with a careless air almost of gaiety, which seemed to indicate the
utmost confidence and determination, and with a graceful compliment to
his arch enemy upon the bench and the yellow dog who had hunted with
him, assured the jury that the defendant had had the fairest of fair
trials and that he, Mr. Tutt, would now proceed to demonstrate to their
satisfaction his client's entire innocence; nay, would show them that he
was a man not only guiltless of any wrong-doing but worthy of their
hearty commendation.
With jokes not too unseemly for the occasion he overcame their
preliminary distrust and put them in a good humor. He gave a historical
dissertation upon the law governing homicide, on the constitutional
rights of American citizens, on the laws of naturalization, marriage,
and the domestic relations; waxed eloquent over Italy and the Italian
character, mentioned Cavour, Garibaldi and Mazzini in a way to imply
that Angelo was their lineal descendant; and quoted from D'Annunzio back
to Horace, Cicero and Plautus.
"Bunk! Nothing but bunk!" muttered Tutt, studying the twelve faces
before him. "And they all know it!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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