The subsequent history of Agnes is lost in obscurity, but since she had to procure but thirty-six compurgators who were prepared to swear that they believed her innocent, and as she was at liberty to choose these herself from her native village of Winchelsea, it is probable that she escaped.*
* Cf. Thayer, as cited, supra.
Fortunately the sight of a woman, save of the very lowest class, at the bar of justice is rare. The number of cases where women of good environment appear as defendants in the criminal courts in the course of a year may be numbered upon the fingers of a single hand, and, although the number of female defendants may equal ten per cent of the total number of males, not one-tenth of the women brought to the bar of justice have had the benefit of an honest bringing up and good surroundings.
CHAPTER VIII. Tricks of the Trade
"Tricks and treachery," said Benjamin Franklin, "are the practice of fools that have not wit enough to be honest." Had the kindly philosopher been familiar with all the exigencies of the criminal law he might have added a qualification to this somewhat general, if indisputably moral, maxim. Though it doubtless remains true as a guiding principle of life that "Honesty is the best policy," it would be an unwarrantable aspersion upon the intellectual qualities of the members of the criminal bar to say that the tricks by virtue of which they often get their clients off are "the practice of fools." On the contrary, observation would seem to indicate that in many instances the wiser, or at least the more successful, the practitioner of criminal law becomes, the more numerous and ingenious become the "tricks" which are his stock in trade. This must not be taken to mean that there are not high-minded and conscientious practitioners of criminal law, many of them financially successful, some filled with a noble humanitarian purpose, and some drawn to their calling by a sincere enthusiasm for the vocation of the advocate which, in these days of "business" law and commercial methods, reaches perhaps its highest form in the criminal courts.
There are no more "tricks" practised in these tribunals than in the civil, but they are more ingenious in conception, more lawless in character, bolder in execution and less shamefaced in detection.
Let us not be too hard upon our brethren of the criminal branch. Truly, their business is to "get their clients off." It is unquestionably a generally accepted principle that it is better that ninety-nine guilty men should escape than that one innocent man should be convicted. However much persons of argumentative or philosophic disposition may care to quarrel with this doctrine, they must at least admit that it would doubtless appear to them of vital truth were they defending some trembling client concerning whose guilt or innocence they were themselves somewhat in doubt. "Charity believeth all things," and the prisoner is entitled to every reasonable doubt, even from his own lawyer. It is the lawyer's business to create such a doubt if he can, and we must not be too censorious if, in his eagerness to raise this in the minds of the jury, he sometimes oversteps the bounds of propriety, appeals to popular prejudices and emotions, makes illogical deductions from the evidence, and impugns the motives of the prosecution. The district attorney should be able to take care of himself, handle the evidence in logical fashion, and tear away the flimsy curtain of sentimentality hoisted by the defence. These are hardly "tricks" at all, but sometimes under the name of advocacy a trick is "turned" which deserves a much harsher name.
Not long ago a celebrated case of murder was moved for trial after the defendant's lawyer had urged him in vain to offer a plea of murder in the second degree. A jury was summoned and, as is the usual custom in such cases, examined separately on the "voir dire" as to their fitness to serve. The defendant was a German, and the prosecutor succeeded in keeping all Germans off the jury until the eleventh seat was to be filled, when he found his peremptory challenges exhausted. Then the lawyer for the prisoner managed to slip in a stout old Teuton, who replied, in answer to a question as to his place of nativity, "Schleswig-Holstein." The lawyer made a note of it, and, the box filled, the trial proceeded with unwonted expedition.
The defendant was charged with having murdered a woman with whom he had been intimate, and his guilt of murder in the first degree was demonstrated upon the evidence beyond peradventure. At the conclusion of the case, the defendant not having dared to take the stand, the lawyer arose to address the jury in behalf of what appeared a hopeless cause. Even the old German in the back row seemed plunged in soporific inattention. After a few introductory remarks the lawyer raised his voice and in heart-rending tones began: