When Jake Emspak stepped up to the jury box to deliver his own final plea, he promptly picked up the challenge.
"I have known the District Attorney too well, for too many years," he said, "to believe that he has considered only the superficial aspects of this case. If you should find the defendant guilty, I am sure he would be the last to oppose consideration of all the matters I have raised in the determination of a just sentence.
"And I grant you that if a verdict of guilty is reached, the letter of the law will be fulfilled, and an eye for an eye can be paid.
"Likewise, if the verdict is not guilty, the letter of the law most unquestionably will be violated—but its spirit will be vindicated!
"I am asking you to take a bold step, across a new frontier.... Yes, down through the ages, law has become a living, meaningful instrument of human dignity because—at each crossroad of decision—men and women were not afraid to depart from precedent!"
Oldtimers in the court had never before heard Jake Emspak summarize a case in such dispassionate, objective tones. Usually, his voice and argument ranged the gamut of emotional and semantic appeals, plucking at each member of the jury like the strings of a harp. Today, he seemed to be making an effort to hold himself in check.
"This is the trial of a living man for the crime of a man who no longer exists," Jake continued quietly. "Science destroyed that man—completely and with absolute finality! In his place is a man with a new body, new thoughts, new blood and new reproductive capacity. The fact that this new man can be brought to trial violates justice in its deepest and truest meaning! It points inescapably to the fact that the law must be revised to bring it up to date with present reality...."
Jake paused and was silent for so long that he appeared to have forgotten his surroundings. When he finally continued, his voice was so soft that the jurors unconsciously leaned forward to catch his words:
"There is still another dimension to this case—one that transcends science ... and the law. It is one I approached with great uncertainty, because it leads down a path I am walking for the first time....
"Some of the testimony brought out in this trial may not have been new to all of you, though it was new to me. Perhaps you have all formed your own conclusions with regard to the relationship between the spirit or soul of Man, and his outer shell ... the house in which man lives. But if this house becomes a prison for the real man, and science releases him to live in a new dwelling, then did the man ever actually exist until his release? And if the man who lives now did not exist at the time of the crime for which he is tried, can he then be judged guilty?