The Room with the Little Door

by Roland Burnham Molineux

Then the police captain of the precinct sends for you. You go prepared to be cast into prison. Not so; while the “Journal,” “World,” and “Herald” have been clearing up the mystery of this “inside job,” the police have made an arrest. The prisoner is a well-known burglar. On that night and at the time your house was entered he was seen loitering outside, but just at present he won’t talk. You know that he either robbed you himself, or watched while a confederate did. Do you want your wife’s property? Do you want your character back again? Do you want to get “hunk”? Remember, whoever entered your house came prepared to kill. Perhaps you are a father, and know your conscientious duty towards that eldest son of yours, your own flesh and blood, when he has misbehaved and is sulky. Do you birch him? Do you trounce him, or do you stop to argue? Is it more brutal to inflict corporal punishment upon a man than upon a child?

But you don’t stop now to debate that question. You fling yourself upon your knees, and with tears implore that you be allowed to assist at—“the third degree.” You even offer all the worldly goods you have left for the privilege of plying that garden hose yourself—just once, where it will do the most good. Stop, sir, the law forbids! After a couple of howls the peevishness of your new acquaintance vanishes. He speaks. In a few hours your property is restored, and you are distributing cigars and buying wine for the reporters, in the hope that they will stop lying about you. Your wife condescends to speak to you for the first time in days. If upon his trial the rogue should plead that an illegal confession had been wrung from him, and the police should deny it, would you go to court and corroborate the thief, or would you “lie like a gentleman”?

The question is, Is the “third degree” ever used to compel a confession from an innocent person, or to satisfy a grudge? In either case the abuse, not the use, is to be condemned. Are theories made up without evidence, and some poor victim made to fit the case by means of torture? Was “Frenchy” really innocent and in prison all those years? If not, why was he pardoned a few months ago? Was McAuliffe beaten to death to satisfy a grudge, or for fear of future revelations? It is not my business to find out. I have been informed that at the last election the people selected some one else to do that; and if in theorizing upon these subjects to myself I have come to no conclusion which I care to give here, I am sure I do the “Finest” no injustice, for they have theorized on my case for nearly four years, and have come to no conclusion at all.

The first and second degrees are efforts to outwit a criminal. They would seldom entrap an innocent person. Moreover, the accused need not answer questions, and this should be the course pursued by any one accused of crime, no matter how innocent. The first and second degrees are admitted to exist; the third degree has been described, and, on the whole, I am inclined to approve of it, although unlawful. It has brought many criminals to justice; but I do not defend the fourth degree, which is the name I use, for the lack of a better one, to describe the present state of affairs existing in the office of the public prosecutor. It is a continuation of the others, after the affair reaches the hands of an Assistant District Attorney with an ambition for a record for securing convictions—one looking for a reputation. It is made possible by twin evils of recent birth: yellow journalism and expert testimony. Summed up, it is the use of slander and perjury. In the “fourth degree” the pen is mightier than the night stick—the victim is not pounded with the “locust,” but in the press. Like the fourth dimension of space, if there is one, this state of affairs is invisible; but invisible only because we will not observe.

Permit me to prove the existence of this fourth degree. Time was, when trials in the criminal courts of this county were intended to determine the guilt or the innocence of the accused. All this is changed now; convictions must be obtained by every and any means, when money and reputations are to be made; and the secret methods of convicting innocent men constitute the fourth degree. Immediately upon arrest, or even before, public opinion is aroused against the suspect by inflammatory newspaper statements in which the victim is accused of crime; the presumption of innocence is no longer allowed him. His family is branded by the most contemptible calumnies; and the public is assured in every edition that the authorities have ample proof of the accused’s guilt, that new evidence is constantly pouring in, and that conviction is a certainty. During this trial in the newspapers, fake evidence is published; opinions of previous officials not noted for their over-blameless public lives are printed, experts are turned loose—all of them, of course, on one side—and this is kept up until it is believed that public opinion has been swayed against the victim. Eulogies on the generosity and fairness of the assistant prosecutor in charge are printed editorially (making certain the source from whence these articles emanate, for in our day, the District Attorney’s office has become a news agency for sensational journalism). In the manner affected by all savages, this red fire is burnt, tum-tums are beaten, stink-balls thrown to distract public attention from what is about to happen.

Now comes an all important part of the fourth degree. The public prosecutor declares that he has never known a plainer case of guilt; and deprives the accused of the examination before a magistrate, which the law guarantees him, by “railroading” the case before the Grand Jury, which has been prepared and prejudiced by poisoning the wells of information—the press. These proceedings being secret, evidence favorable to the defendant is suppressed; and lies can be manufactured if needed, for no cross-examination of witnesses is permitted. It is the golden opportunity of any secret foe. Of course an indictment can always be secured under such circumstances, the accused branded and thrown into prison, and need never know one word of the evidence against him. Great is the political and legal capital of the Assistant District Attorney who manages a case in this way, especially if the victim be a big fish. He is called a “Fearless Prosecutor”—an “Able Assistant.”

If the accused has money he can appeal to a higher court and have such an illegal indictment set aside, but the prosecuting attorney will make this process long and expensive. The more money the accused spends now, the less he will have for the necessities of the trial, and his wily opponent knows this well. The Able Assistant is not troubled with matters financial. There are fresh bond issues for him, if necessary. Should the Grand Jury refuse to indict and discharge the accused, the “Fearless One” simply arrests him again, and repeats his efforts before another Grand Jury; all the time assuring the public that the prisoner’s millions will not save him, and that the prosecutor can be trusted to drag him to the bar of justice. He does it, too, sooner or later. That is, it is called the “bar of justice.” During this time the people’s counsel makes his grand stand play. He challenges the accused under enormous headlines—“Are you innocent of the crime?” Then produce the culprit, prove his guilt; and this learned and generous gentleman of legal attainments will release you.

Finally, the accused is cast into prison, and kept there. He must rely on his friends and his lawyers. This is all very well presuming he has them, but hard indeed for the poor fellow who has none. In other words, a man is put in a position where he cannot defend himself. Perhaps the offence is a bailable one, let bail be offered; it is immediately increased. The unfortunate victim cannot get out on bail. The Able Assistant will see to that. In the meantime, any persons who it seems probable are to be witnesses for the defence are subpœnaed and terrorized, if possible, threatened with arrest, insulted, bullied. The yellow newspapers, hungry for sensation, have put the defendant at the mercy of every blackmailer and crank. Their offers of reward invite all men without principle, but with a price, to make fake identifications which will implicate him. Does the prosecution desire any particular person for a witness? Such persons are simply kidnapped and put in the House of Detention.

Time elapses, perhaps years; all is now ready for the trial in court. No! I have forgotten to mention that the county of New York will give a lawyer five hundred dollars to defend a penniless man accused of murder. This is American, this is fair play, it is a helping hand to the under dog. Under, because the fearless prosecutor can spend, and has often spent, hundreds of thousands of dollars to obtain a conviction. His limit is the sky, for it costs his pocket nothing, and when the prosecution makes the issue on expert testimony, the odds on conviction will be two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which the State may perhaps spend, to this five hundred dollars granted to the defendant.

At the trial, everything the law forbids the police to do, is permitted to the District Attorney. In his opening and closing addresses, he exaggerates shamelessly, and tries to prejudice the jurymen with poison distilled from his own imagination. For three months he will be allowed to pour expert testimony into the jury box. And by the way, if a man is guilty, does it take a matter of a quarter of a million and a quarter of a year to show it? At this trial proper—or rather improper—the caricaturist with drawing-board, the jackal reporters—all the cannibals of Park Row, join in the man hunt. Nothing is sacred. Old age, grief, womanhood, innocence are but so much material for the “story.” The official stenographer’s report is a prosaic thing—away with it. The defendant’s appearance, his conduct—will be indeed a problem for the readers of the penny dreadfuls—for while the “Journal” describes his eyes gleaming in their sockets like an infuriated bull’s, the “World” chronicles the tears which course down his pitiable countenance, and the “Herald” comments on his indifferent and callous demeanor.