The district attorney made an impassioned argument to secure the admission of Hummel’s testimony. He said:
“Your Honor has ruled and rules, as I believe, with entire correctness, that as to the truth or falsity as to whether Stanford White did do these acts, we on this trial have nothing to do, the issue being, did the defendant’s mind become unhinged by these and other things that have been proven in evidence? Was an insanity induced by this revelation and the others that appear in evidence which so swept reason from its moorings that when he killed Stanford White that night he did not know the nature and the quality of the act and that it was wrong?
“Your Honor’s rulings have reduced the case to that, and have properly reduced it, in my estimation, to that point.
“Now on that question of whether or not his mind was unhinged by these revelations, whether or no these revelations ever were made to him is surely most important. It is not collateral. It goes to the very root of the case.
“They claim that as Thaw sat in the hotel in Paris that night and asked her to marry him and she said she would not because of White, and she then cryingly told how this man had drugged her when but a girl of fifteen—they contend that this picture unhinged his mind. Your Honor has ruled we have nothing to do with the truth or falsity of her story. We have nothing to do with whether Stanford White did or did not do these things. The issue here is did or did not this defendant’s mind become unhinged when he heard Evelyn Nesbit’s story.
“If this jury believes that she told this awful story would it not be a fact that they would carry it in their minds and would it not weigh heavily?
“If on the other hand I can show that Mrs. Thaw did not tell Thaw in Paris that White drugged her it will be a matter for the jury to consider seriously in determining whether or not Thaw was insane when he killed Stanford White.
“If I can show that Evelyn Nesbit Thaw under the solemnity of an oath swore that White had never wronged her; if I can show that she repelled the advances of the man and that Thaw whipped and beat her because she would not affix her signature to an affidavit charging White wronged her; if I can show that she said to Hummel: ‘He beat me when we were in Paris; he lashed me with a whip because I would not sign papers;’ if I can show she swore ‘Stanford White never touched me’; if I can show that Thaw wanted her to sign papers in order to put White in the penitentiary—I can then show that the evidence in question is of vital importance.
“If I can show that she has made contradictory statements, the testimony of Doctors Evans and Wagner, which was based on her statement contained in the hypothetical question, can be stricken from the records.
“There is the crux of the case as it appears in the evidence, and the question becomes one of what the law says on this subject of introducing contrary statements of a witness.