The Man in Court

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The Man in Court

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Title: The Man in Court
Author: Frederic DeWitt Wells

Release Date: November 10, 2005 [eBook #17041]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN IN COURT***
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+------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: Some obvious typographical | | errors have been corrected in this text. For a list | | please see the bottom of the document. The one Greek | | word is transliterated and marked with +'s. | +------------------------------------------------------+

THE MAN IN COURT
by
FREDERIC DEWITT WELLS Justice, Municipal Court of New York City

G.P. Putnam's Sons New York and London The Knickerbocker Press 1917 Copyright, 1917 by Frederic Dewitt Wells The Knickerbocker Press, New York

To
MY FRIEND
CHARLES E. GOSTENHOFER
OF THE NEW YORK BAR
IN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF HIS AID AND SUGGESTIONS
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED

INTRODUCTION
The author has tried to show the point of view of the ordinary man in a law court, as the various proceedings of a trial take shape before him. To the initiated, the whole book may seem too obvious; but it has not been written for them, but for those to whom these proceedings are unfamiliar. There are many who have a certain curiosity about the courts, and at the same time a real respect for justice, mingled with amusement at the panoplies and antiquated forms of legal procedure.
F. DEW. W.
NEW YORK, _January, 1917_.

CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION iii
I.--A NIGHT COURT 3
II.--THE CIVIL COURT 21
III.--THE JUDGE 39
IV.--THE ANXIOUS JURY 57
V.--THE STRENUOUS LAWYER 75
VI.--THE WORRIED CLIENT 93
VII.--PROGRAMS AND PLEADINGS 111
VIII.--PICKING THE JURY 129
IX.--OPENING THE CASE 149
X.--THE CONFUSED WITNESS 165
XI.--THOSE TECHNICAL OBJECTIONS 183
XII.--THE MOVEMENTS IN COURT 201
XIII.--ELOCUTION 219
XIV.--THE HEAVY CHARGE 235
XV.--THE TRUE VERDICT 251
XVI.--LOOKING BACKWARD 265

I
A Night Court
In the Night Court the drama is vital and throbbing. As the saddest object to contemplate is a play where the essentials are wrong, so in this court the fundamentals of the law are the cause of making it an uncomfortable and pathetic spectacle.
The women who are brought before the Night Court are not heroines, but the criminal law does not seem better than they. It makes little attempt to mitigate any of the wretchedness that it judges; in many cases it moves only to inflict an additional burden of suffering. The result is tragedy.
The magistrate sits high, between standards of brass lamps. His black gown, the metal buttons and gleaming shields of the waiting police officers, the busy court officials behind the long desks on either hand tell of the majesty of the law.
In front of the desk but at a lower level is a space of ten or twelve feet running across the court-room in which are patrolmen, plain-clothes men, detectives, women prisoners, probation officers, reporters, witnesses, investigators, and lawyers. Beyond in the court-room a large crowd is on the benches. There are witnesses, brothers and sisters, friends of the prisoners waiting to see whether they go out through the street entrance or back through the strong barred gate seen through the door on the left. Also there are the "sharks" waiting to follow out the released prisoners, to prey upon them as the circumstances may favor; and a number of curiosity seekers watching intently. For them it can be nothing but a morbid dumb show, for they are so far from the bench that not a word of the proceedings could be heard. Only once in a while the shrieks and imprecations of a struggling hysterical woman as she is hurried out of court can enliven the scene.
Fortified with a letter of introduction to the judge and a disposition that will not be too easily shocked at seeing conditions of life as they actually exist, the spectator may find his way past the policeman at the gate in the rail. It clicks behind him ominously and he wonders whether he will have difficulty in getting out. Finally through clerks and officials who become more kindly as they learn he is a friend of the judge, he is seated in a chair drawn up beside the bench. The magistrate is a hearty round-faced man who seems almost human in spite of his gown and the dignity of his surroundings. The court looks different from this point of view and he may easily watch the judicial enforcement of the law supreme.
The organization of these courts is simple. There are not many rules or technicalities. The judges are patient, hard working, understanding, and efficient. The trouble is with the laws they are called upon