The Prisoner at the Bar: Sidelights on the Administration of Criminal Justice

by Arthur Cheney Train

"No cross-examination," says the assistant.

The judges consult for a moment.

"We find the defendant guilty," announces the presiding judge, dipping his pen into the ink.

"Now, young man, have you ever been convicted?"

"No, your honor."

"I advise you not to steal any more eggs. One month in the penitentiary. Next case!"

Now here is a defendant given a perfectly fair, if not a very full, trial in less than three minutes. Of course it is in such a case practically a mere formality. Two witnesses who have had no previous acquaintance with the prisoner, whose eyesight is perfect, and who have no motive to swear falsely, identify him as caught in flagrante delicto. The defendant has merely put in his defence "on the chance." His sentence would be about the same in either case. The only disadvantage of so active a court is the fact that the multitude of the defendants render it almost impossible to make any very exhaustive study of the majority of them before sentence. However, as the sentences are all light, the defendant always gets the benefit of the doubt, and the court resolves all doubts in his favor.

Sometimes in such a case a criminal conspiracy between the complainant and the officer is disclosed to "do" a mischievous, but not criminal, youth who has fallen into their disfavor. Then the witnesses are subjected to such a fire of questions that they wilt and wither in the blast, the defendant is acquitted and the prosecution's witnesses sometimes held for the action of the grand jury on a charge of perjury. Many a cause célèbre has originated in the Special Sessions through the perspicacity of some member of that bench during a petty trial, and defendants there convicted often divulge in their confessions evidence which for a time sets the newspaper world by the ears. This is especially true of cases where some civil officer is accused of taking a bribe to influence his action or to make an appointment. He may be convicted, confess, and for a day or two the papers are full of the unearthing of a far-reaching conspiracy to debauch the city government, barter offices at wholesale, and deliver the city to a coterie of criminals. The next step in the proceeding is the unfortunate discovery that the defendant's confession, since it cannot be corroborated, is entirely worthless. Yet, as he has apparently done all he could to atone for his offence, he receives a mitigated sentence, while the uproar occasioned by his sensational disclosures subsides as suddenly as it began.

The bane of the Court of Special Sessions in New York County and very likely the bane of all similar courts, are the so-called "Liquor Tax cases." As one of the officers of this court recently said: "In this class of cases the court knows that it is being 'flim-flammed,' and, in addition, that it is helpless. We convict in about sixty per cent of the cases, but the judges know perfectly well that a considerable number of those convicted are men who, while not honest enough not to violate the law, are too honest to pay corruption money."

The possibilities for blackmail and the arbitrary and unequal way in which the law is enforced in different parts of the city (one section being allowed to be "wide open" while an adjacent district is "dry") render the judges loath to convict even in "straight" cases. When Liquor Tax cases are transferred, by order of the judge presiding in Part I, for trial in the General Sessions, the juries before which they are prosecuted will not convict at all.[23]