The Man in Court Part 3

During the trial a feeling of resentment at court procedure grows. It is not the judge any longer who is keeping and delaying them. The witnesses appear like fools it is true, but the lawyers make them act more foolishly than need be. Why does the judge make such absurd rulings? The law must be an unreasonable thing and the judge evidently knows a great deal about it. Why can't the witnesses tell what they know? The most tiresome parts are when the lawyers begin arguing about the testimony. One side wants the witness to tell something and the other side does not. The judge keeps still and lets the lawyers go on talking as though it were something important, perhaps he can not help it. The lawyers or the judge can not have much to do. The judge it is true is paid to listen, but the lawyers must be pretty hard up when they will go on talking in that way. No juryman would stay here wasting his time during business hours, and afterwards there are the newspapers, supper, and taking the family to the movies, all of which is far more sensible.

"Say, it's like a vaudeville show to see those two go on," thinks the juryman. "You couldn't beat it if you put it in an act. Georgie Cohan or Joe Weber could make their fortunes if they only hired the lawyers as actors or came into court for their material."

Occasionally the judge calls the lawyers up to his desk and together they talk over something which the jury can not hear. The jury look as though they did not care. If they want to talk some more--well, let them. Perhaps they are planning some game, and the jury will wait until their turn comes. In the jury-room they can show them what's what; that is where they know their chance is coming. Even if the judge is only trying to find out something about the case, that is a sensible thing to do. Why don't the lawyers come over and talk to the jury like that? In a few minutes they could ask them some questions that would settle the whole matter.

The strange part is when a witness has said something and told how he or she feels about the whole case, which is exactly what the jury want to know, one of the lawyers jumps up and says he moves to strike that part all out and the judge strikes out. The lawyer having scored a hit, then says:

"I ask your Honor to instruct the jury to disregard the testimony just given."

"Gentlemen," says the judge, "the evidence just given has been ruled out by the court and is not relevant to the issue, and I must instruct you to disregard these words of the witness and in arriving at your verdict not to consider them."

Of all the absurdities that happen in court, the jurymen think that is the worst. Does the judge or the lawyer believe for a moment that because they say so the jury are going to forget what the witness said, especially when it was the very thing they wanted to find out?

They watch the stenographer and they notice he does not even take the trouble to cross it out of the notebook.

Occasionally a juryman becomes particularly interested and wants to question something. Usually he is too self-conscious to run the risk of being snubbed, but sometimes he is bolder and ventures a question.

"Why," asks the juryman, "didn't the defendant give back the goods if they were not what she wanted?" Both lawyers are on their feet. There is a mute appeal to the court; both sides are afraid to object to the question for they think the juryman may have a prejudice if he were stopped. The judge usually comes to the rescue and tells the juryman that he is sorry, but that his question is manifestly improper in form. The evidence should be whether the defendant did a certain thing or did not do it. The reason why he did it is not in point. After two or three attempts of this kind the juryman subsides and sits patiently through the trial without any suggestion. He thinks that there is a hopelessly complicated game being played before him and he does not attempt to interfere.

There may be some truth in the theory of the attorney who says:

"Always look out for the juryman who asks your witness questions. He is against you. If he absolutely believed the witness he would let it pa.s.s without questioning." This reasoning may be used as an argument either way, for if the juryman believes the witness he may feel that he should like to have him tell more. Or if he does not accept him as truthful, he thinks it will not be worth while to ask him other questions. An inference may be drawn as to the juror's att.i.tude for and against.

An inexplicable thing to the jury is when the judge takes the case away from them and directs a verdict or dismissal of the complaint.

That the jury should be compelled to listen to all that ma.s.s of testimony and then at the end not have a chance to decide is unreasonable. If the plaintiff did not have a case, why did the judge let them go on? He should have found it out earlier instead of wasting all that time.

After the whole case is in, it may happen that both sides move for a direction of the verdict and then the jury have nothing to do. The judge says:

"Gentlemen of the Jury, I direct you to find a verdict for so-and-so."

Before they have a chance to say whether they will or will not, the clerk announces a verdict for so-and-so. This is very annoying and discouraging, especially when the jury were going to find a verdict directly contrary to the way the judge decided. Technically they have a right to refuse to find a verdict as the judge directs, but if they did, only a mis-trial would result.

It is an ill.u.s.tration of the difference between the function of a judge and a jury. The jury pa.s.s on the facts, the judge on the law.

When the judge dismisses the case, he is saying that the facts may be so and what happened may be truly stated, but even then it does not make any difference. The law is that those facts do not make out a case. Only when the facts make out a case do the jury have any function. Then it is for them to find out whether the facts are as the plaintiff claims them to be or as the defendant. The jury are usually puzzled and do not understand the distinction. In certain cases the judge determines both the facts and the law and decides the whole matter. In those cases, and in what is known as equity, there are no jury, but a judge may always ask for a jury if he wishes one to determine the facts.

A jury is supposed to be advantageous to the defendant in a criminal action and to the plaintiff in a civil action.

"One judge is better than twelve," says the advocate of the non-jury system. "Law is a technical thing and you can not put a technical case plainly enough so that twelve men could thoroughly understand it."

A discussion of the jury system is not in place. The jurymen have already been summoned and are in court and until the structure of the law is changed they will remain. They are ready to try any case that may come before them. The judge feels a sense of relief at not having to pa.s.s upon the facts. The law being laid down, all that remains for him to do is to see that the facts are fairly and plainly presented to the jury, that both sides conduct the case in a reasonable manner and that the trial be as open-minded as possible. The anxious att.i.tude of mind toward the jury is that of the parties who are to be judged, the lawyers and their clients.

The jury do not become very excited over the wrongs of one side or the other. They certainly do not enjoy the trial or look upon it as an example of a good fight although under the present system of procedure that is what it is supposed to be.

V

THE STRENUOUS LAWYER

Of equal importance in the cast are the lawyers. They play the parts that represent action. The judge and jury are the heavy characters.

The clients who make their entrances and exits as they take or leave the witness chair are of minor importance. The lawyers occupy the center of the stage the greater part of the time. Their clients sit watching, the judge and jury keep silent and listen to them.

In order to make a trial or a contest there must be two sides. There may be three or more lawyers, but usually they divide themselves into two groups and take sides. The attacking party,--the plaintiff, complainant, or prosecutor,--naturally the more aggressive, and the man who is defending himself.

The latter's lawyer is the one who is wary and alert. Sometimes the attacking lawyer having gained a position sits down and defends it.

During the trial there is a constant change of attack, the taking of a redoubt, charges and countercharges, trenches captured and forsaken again. The intellectual and legal battle is as bitter as any physical one. To the understanding observer and the partic.i.p.ant it is momentous and intense.

While the contest is waging there is no intermission. The fight is always hot, keen, bitter. Quietly as the lawyer may handle himself, underneath his calm exterior he is ready to fight, bite, scratch, shoot, kill, slash, but always he must do so under the rules of the game, never hitting below the belt. What the battle is about is the issue, the result is called the verdict, or the decision, and the formal statement of the court as to the result the judgment.

The contest is so real it soon ceases to be a play. It is too much in earnest and whatever humorous quality it may possess never loses the underlying intensity of human conflict. One noted trial lawyer says that he always feels the loss of a case in the pit of his stomach, another that he can never begin a trial without mopping his forehead for fear that beads of perspiration might be apparent. However ordinary and accustomed court trials may become to the partic.i.p.ants, there will always remain the deep underlying stress of human pa.s.sions.

As lawyers are watched, they may appear alternately as jumping up and sitting down like jacks-in-the-box or those weather figures, where if one goes in the other comes out. Their appearance differs in the different courts from the higher courts where the well-groomed eminent leader of the bar, with thin lips and white side whiskers debates in a frock coat before the appellate court, questions of international importance, or the anxious-eyed little attorney where in one of the lower courts with a showy diamond ring and a handkerchief sticking out of his pocket in the shape of an American flag, argues, while chewing gum, whether his client shall pay the fourteen dollars rent or not.

There is never any peace between them. Occasionally there is a truce when they come together to agree on a certain state of facts, or conclusions of law, but essentially they are at war; otherwise they would not be in court. The only reason for their being there is an issue to be decided.

Often so eager do they appear that physical violence seemed impending.

It is as though they were on the point of breaking into fisticuffs.

The judge says: "Gentlemen, gentlemen." They appear like two naughty schoolboys who have to be controlled by their master. First one is restrained and rebuked, then the other is held strictly to the rules of the game. Like schoolboys, although they may be fighting one another, they appear at times to be in league against the judge. As in a baseball game, both sides join against the umpire. There is a common cla.s.s feeling between the lawyers leaguing them against the judge. This may be explained perhaps by a rather subtle psychology.

The lawyers are primarily in court to please their clients. Every ruling of the judge against them on even minor points of evidence, any adverse decision is fatal to them from the point of view of retaining the client for the next litigation. They watch the judge with lynx-like eyes. Is he going to drive the client away from them? Should he reprimand them or speak severely, their client would think that they had angered the judge and so they had lost the case. Defeat in a case is so important that if a lawyer loses a case he probably loses his client.

In one of the lower city courts on the East Side, a young attorney came in one morning with a scar across his cheek, a scratch on his nose, and sticking plaster on his chin. The judge had often seen him before. After the case was over he called him to the bench and said that he was sorry he had an accident, and asked him what had happened.

"Oh, not much," said the lawyer, "last week I simply lost a case for a client."

The complaint of the lawyer against the judge is always that he has forgotten that he was a lawyer once himself. He does not realize how important it is that the lawyer should make a good impression on his client. His feeling is, if the judge cuts him off when he is arguing, the client will think that he is talking foolishly. The judge overrules his objection. The client thinks the judge does not like him. The judge denies his motion to strike out, he evidently does not look on the lawyer favorably. The lawyer's chance of display is in talking. If he is not allowed to go on he feels the judge is unreasonable in not listening to him.

The nice lines to be made by the judge between consideration for the feeling of the lawyers and insisting that justice be fully and speedily accomplished, are hard to draw. On the one hand there are the courts where no limit is put to the digressions of attorneys and where they may wander on and on, apparently merely to display their oratory to their clients, and other courts where the undoubtedly bad manners of the bench to the bar are unforgivable.

Control of the trial is necessary because it is a struggle in a court on a defined area. It is an intellectual ordeal by battle, a capping of intellects. It is like a game of chess in which luck is eliminated, the board is free, the pieces are equal, the way in which they may move is fixed by the rules of the game of court procedure. The element of chance is made not by the court or the procedure, but by the fact that the p.a.w.ns, the castles, and the knights are not of ivory, but are human and mutable.

The lawyers are discontented with the courts, while the judges feel that the deficiencies are the fault of the lawyers. The lawyers, they say, do not cooperate with the judges in the administration of justice, and are too busy with their own game. Here enters that academic question of whether a lawyer's duty is first to the court and justice, or first to his client,--should he defend a man he knows to be guilty. The dispute is soph.o.m.oric. He is the advocate of his client first, foremost, and all the time. That is the reason for his existence. He is the agent for his client; his tongue, brain, and energy belong to his client. He is undoubtedly justified in whatever he does, if he keeps to the rules. Justice is best promoted by heeding the rules of justice to the utmost.

It is to be remembered that the lawyer occupies an uncertain position.

As an officer of the court he is sworn to promote justice; as a champion in the battle he is under the deep obligation of performing his utmost for his client. At times the conflict between his duties seems real. As an officer of the court he has the privilege of the floor. He can be heard and is admitted to the court. It is as though he had joined a club in which dueling or gaming is permitted. The obligation resting upon him is to act as a gentleman and obey the rules and not to cheat. If he keeps to the rules he is presumably a gentleman and can do what he pleases for his clients.

If there is any complaint about the courts it is held to be the fault of the lawyers, if there are criticisms of the lawyers it is the fault of the courts. They are interdependent and indissoluble. If a club house is not suitable for its purposes, is old-fashioned, rickety, and dirty, it is the fault of the members. If the members do not behave the club house gets a bad reputation.

Courts are inst.i.tutions, and not persons; the lawyers are the individual stockholders. If by his actions in court or in the club he brings disgrace on himself as a lawyer or upon his club, there is very little to be done about it. The club membership may be more limited and select, but the building will not be improved except that it may be swept a little cleaner.

The judge as the president of the club must see that the lawyers observe the rules, he can not rebuild the club house or materially change the rules. The only persons who can effect a change are the lawyers. As members, they are agents for their clients who are the public at large. Occasionally the public awakes to a realization of their power over both courts and lawyers, that they are their creatures; then happens a revolution in procedure and something is accomplished.

The lawyer waits about the courthouse for his case to be reached. It may take days or even weeks before it is marked ready. He wastes his time. The witnesses have been subpoenaed. They have to be told to come again the next day. There is little money in it for the lawyer.

Office practice pays better than court work and except for the eminent pleaders there is but small honor.

During the trial the lawyer seems to be sparring. He takes the att.i.tude of saying: "I want that point of law decided; it is such a nice point, it ought to be settled." As a matter of fact he only wants it settled in his own favor. It is not the abstract interest but the concrete fact in which he is interested.

The lawyer is vigilant from the beginning of the trial to the end.

After the case is marked ready he watches the jury, the other side, and the judge; any movement may be of importance; if it escapes his notice he may lose his whole case. It is not safe for him to go on the a.s.sumption that the other side is as honest as he is. If they should attempt to put in some evidence that is not proper, to offer a paper that is not duly authenticated, to try by some trick or device to take an unfair advantage, he must be ready to pounce upon the incident. If he is quick he may turn it to the advantage of his own side.