Under the Law

by Edwina Stanton Babcock

So that when the counsel for the defense rose, three young hearts in the assemblage arose with him. Yet to their passionate wish, Watts seemed, standing in the court-room here, to fall short. The distinguished figure, the face tanned with a summer of outdoor work and horseback riding, sobered with long, lonely vigils of thought, had, it seemed, great respect for this country court-room, for its judiciary, for the foreman of the jury and for his opponent in the matter of the trial. Watts carried himself like a man who had been impressed by the firmness and sobriety of the proceedings. The lawyer let the court-room know that he had had many personal talks with the prisoner. It was his skilful way of assuring them that they shared his passion for reforms.

Terry's head lifted, looking at him curiously. The young fellow remembered revelations, tears, of one night in particular when Watts had stayed with him until dawn came and his hysteria was over. The boy wondered what his friend would reveal of this. But the great lawyer went calmly on with unemotional emphasis to state that he had found the criminal's mind vague, perhaps not properly educated, unformed and in ignorance of the many physical facts that at his age induce crime.

"And we know," remarked the speaker calmly, "that there is an age in young manhood when a youth is hardly responsible. The law, I feel, should invariably in its adjustments reckon with the physiological fact of that age. He had," he said, "talked with the prisoner as he would have liked to be given the wisdom at crises to talk to a son of his own, and as"—here the man looked about the court-room into the rows of dull and complacent faces—"it seems to me it is absolutely incumbent on all of us to talk to sons and daughters of our own frankly, giving them truth and the clear analysis of all that makes in our bodies and environment and heritage for crime; for sins against ourselves and the body politic."

The lawyer then reviewed some mitigating circumstances, touched lightly on some of the more interesting technical aspects of the case and addressed the jury on behalf of the commutation of the sentence. Finally, with curious simple tenderness, a thing that the court-room did not understand, at which Judge Bogart looked displeased and drummed impatiently with his fingers, at which the country lawyers openly squirmed and yawned, but at which Dora sat tense and straight, and Terry's young head went down into his arms, he finished.

"If, Gentlemen of the Jury, you should still feel that you must bring in the verdict of intentional and deliberate guilt, then I appeal, your Honor, for the commutation of sentence. I appeal in the name of Humanity, of struggling, sinning, ignorant Humanity, and by that new spirit which makes us disbelieve nowadays in the 'pound of flesh.' I appeal, your Honor, by my own youth's ignorance, its mistakes and struggles and by the ignorances and mistakes and struggles of those I have tried to help; by yours, Gentlemen of the Jury, who take your solemn part in the decision after the trial. I appeal to Terence O'Brien, the accused, to take your decision, whatever it may be, and apply it as a test of his own character and what he may still make of that character; and I appeal to his sister, sitting there, to make her grief and sorrow noble, a test by which she may grow stronger and braver.

"I appeal," said Watts, looking down toward his three young friends who sat with hot cheeks watching him, "to all intelligence and sweetness and honesty of women, all strength and cleanness and courage of men to help Terence O'Brien and all such as he. I ask, your Honor, that his sentence may be mitigated, so that he may finally go back to a world acknowledged the better by his punishment, and be received by the world with respect and helpfulness. I ask these things," said the lawyer in a low voice, "as I know my own human soul and its potentialities, as I know yours, sir," turning to the prosecutor, "as I know yours, gentlemen," turning to the somewhat confused jury, "and as I know yours," with a half smile at the unimaginative audience eyeing him.

"For we are all somewhere, sometime, through some guilt or ignorance or weakness and mistake, guilty of punishable things. That is why we must forever demand of our Law that it shall be administrated with hope, must forever inculcate and advocate the higher, healthier judgments of analysis, understanding, temperance and mercy. There is no glory in punishing predestined guilt; there is glory in shielding and protecting potential criminals from guilt."

The speech fell painfully flat, as Watts must have known it would. It left the court-room cold. These country people, trained to the less analytical, more emotional attitude toward crime and punishment, felt somehow defrauded. The great lawyer had robbed them of their Roman Holiday, of the raging and tearing oratory to which by his very greatness they felt they were entitled. There is an unconquerable love among the half-baked for flourishes and figures, for verbal fireworks and Mosaic utterances. No country audience feels that it has been fairly dealt with in a criminal trial unless it has been seized roughly by the orator and dragged willingly over the entire gamut of the prisoner's shame, contrition, despair, rage, vindictiveness, and given a delicious peep at the unspeakable and the unprintable.

The rest was technical. The judge dryly charged the jury, commending, coldly, a consideration for the youth of the prisoner. The jury filed out; the crowd filtered forth.