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

by Arthur Cheney Train

In the same way the court looks with grave suspicion on most cases where a defendant is arraigned charged with "assault" on an officer. They expect to see arraigned at the bar (and are usually not disappointed) a small man covered with bandages, while a burly officer without a scratch upon his rosy countenance takes the stand and swears that the defendant assaulted him. The policeman always has plenty of corroboration—the defendant none at all. The chances are that the relative sizes of the two men are such that if the officer coughed the defendant would drop dead. The proper charge in such a case would be, not attempted assault on an officer, but attempted suicide. The truth of the matter probably is that the small man, having done or said something to irritate the officer, has been pounded to a pulp and then ignominiously haled away to the station house, while his terrified companions, knowing full well that if they interfered theirs would be a similar fate, have retired to their homes privately to execrate a state of civilization where humble citizens can be subjected to such persecution.

Practically the Special Sessions is the final court of disposition for most misdemeanors. Except in automobile, theatrical, health, copyright, and trade-mark cases and a few others, a majority of the defendants do not have enough money even to hire a lawyer, to say nothing of taking an appeal. They are disposed of then and there just as in certain cases they are disposed of in the magistrates' courts. For them a sentence once imposed is final.

Occasionally the Special Sessions is the scene of a great trial, as celebrated as those fought out in the "Parts" upstairs or in the criminal trial term of the Supreme Court across the hall. A prominent druggist may have been accused of refilling bottles with spurious or diluted contents. He is being prosecuted by the owners of the trade-mark or label. They retain distinguished counsel to prepare the case for the prosecution. The accused engages equally able lawyers to defend him. The crime is highly technical and the evidence almost entirely a matter of chemical analysis and expert opinion. The battle goes on for weeks or even months. A jury would have become hopelessly confused and the issue successfully obscured, but the three judges are expert jurymen, and in due course, if he be guilty, the defendant is inevitably convicted. Such a trial may cost the parties tens of thousands of dollars for expert testimony alone, while the sentence of the defendant will very likely be not more than a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar fine. Even so, the integrity of the trade-mark has been sustained and the swindler stamped as a criminal.

Fifty per cent or more of the work of the Special Sessions is practically amplified police-court business, but it is accomplished with an exactitude and efficiency that makes much of that done in the magistrates' courts appear crude indeed. The lesson of this particular court is that police business can be done speedily, effectively, and justly, provided the right men are selected to do it.

Fully seventy-five per cent of the criminals begin with petty infractions of the law. A driver for an iceman may "swipe" his comrade's horse blanket. If he be convicted and sent to the penitentiary he may learn to commit crimes of which he had never dreamed in his driver days, when his highest ambition was to get a ticket to a "chowder" or to a "grand ball." His next appearance may be in the General Sessions charged with burglary, and his last in the Supreme Court under indictment for murder. If, on the other hand, having been found guilty, he be merely reprimanded and paroled under a suspended sentence, he will in all likelihood never appear in court as a defendant again. Hence an opportunity, greater even than that of the police justice, for the exercise of a wise and humane discretion.

The multitude of prisoners who are unable to employ counsel have created a bevy of lawyers, abundantly able to look out for the interests of petty offenders, who stand or sit near the bar and are assigned by the court to the various defendants. A whispered fifteen seconds' conversation with their unfortunate client and they are enabled to take charge of the case. Long experience has made them almost as expert in estimating human nature as the judges themselves, and they are familiar with every trick of the trade which may raise a "reasonable doubt." The leaders among them have skilful "runners" who haunt the police courts and the corridors of the building, heralding the virtues and successes of their masters, handing cards to prospective clients, and currying business in every conceivable manner. Observing a forlorn person, who timidly responds when his case is called, the runner instantly offers him the services of the "biggest" lawyer in the court for a five-, three-, or two-dollar retainer. If the client escapes conviction he is supposed to pay twenty-five dollars more and is dunned until he does. This may seem petty business and small pickings, but when one considers that thirteen thousand odd cases are disposed of each year, one sees that at even the modest fee of ten dollars per case there is over a hundred thousand dollars a year in the Special Sessions waiting for somebody.

The best of these lawyers earn as much as five thousand dollars per year, including their outside and police-court business. The runner usually gets nearly as much. Sometimes there will be a one-hundred-dollar, a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar, or even a five-hundred-dollar fee. In reality there is more money to be made in the police court than in the Special Sessions, for it is when the offender has just been caught and is in his first spasm of terror that he is most ready to "give up." Police-court fees are sometimes very high.

The most notable figure of this bar was Tom Cherry, otherwise known as "The Attorney-General of the Special Sessions." When sober he was a most capable, rough-and-ready, catch-as-catch-can, police-court lawyer. His fame extended to every magistrate's court, and his business was so constant that he never sat down, but stood at the bar from the opening of court to its adjournment, defending almost every prisoner who had money to pay a fee, and being assigned to practically all those who had not. His success was his undoing. Without any knowledge of law, although he presumably had passed the Bar examinations (Heaven knows how!), his judgment of character, his ready wit, and his quick tongue made him no unworthy antagonist for a well-trained youngster. But Cherry never took an unfair advantage, and his statement as to his client's past, and sometimes as to his innocence, was received without question by the court. It was a boon to a new assistant to gain Cherry's confidence; and it was a reproach to many that they did not do so.

Cherry finally succumbed to his closest friend and worst enemy—drink. His periodic absences became more and more frequent, and finally the word was sadly whispered through the building that Cherry had "passed." His memory is still green and his smiling face will never be forgotten by those who knew him. A rival attorney almost immediately succeeded to his practice and his particular place beside the bar, but the Court of Special Sessions is not the same.