Counsel representing the relatives of the condemned man then arose and said that he was instructed to say that they viewed the crime with the greatest abhorrence and wished to repudiate in the most emphatic way the slightest sympathy with the views and motives which had led to it, adding, on behalf of the father and family, that there were no more loyal subjects of the Empire than themselves. His Lordship replied that, while the course might seem somewhat unusual, yet, having regard to the wicked attempt at justification in some quarters, he was glad for what had been said on behalf of the members of the family.
Dhingra and his guards then disappeared from the dock and in a few moments the Lord Chief Justice and his escort, as well as the small audience, had withdrawn, leaving the court room deserted except for a newspaper reporter who was completing his notes. And so the drama closed.
One was told that the youthful student would probably be hanged in a fortnight from the following Tuesday—the trial having taken place on a Friday—as ancient custom entitled the condemned man to three Sundays of life after sentence.[B]
The spectacle of this little, lonely, misguided, yellow man, prompted partly by fanaticism but largely by vanity, having braved the whole power of mighty Britain in its proud capital to exploit his chimerical views, caught in the meshes of a law he hardly understood and hemmed in on all sides by its remorseless ministers, was deeply interesting and somewhat calculated to excite sympathy, until one's reason summoned the significance of the treacherous murder and the picture of a fair Englishwoman going out into that London night a widow.
While the result of this trial was justice, swift and unerring, to an American observer it seemed odd and scarcely a fair practice for a man to be tried for his life unrepresented by counsel learned in the law. Although the case was plain, nevertheless, with great respect for the admirable administration of the law in England, it must be remarked that innocent persons,—who, even if not mentally defective, may none the less be far from clever and who are necessarily inexperienced, and may perhaps lack the intelligence or means to retain counsel—ought not to be permitted by the court to pit their wits against an able officer of the crown, the stake being their own necks. To excuse the omission on the ground of the obvious guilt and callousness of the prisoner, is not a satisfactory solution, because it would involve prejudging the issue to be tried. The proper and humane course is followed in the United States—the appointment by the court of counsel for an undefended prisoner—for it guards against the possibility of terrible mistakes.
From a technical point of view, the "leading" nature of the direct examinations, so noticeable in English courts, was especially conspicuous in that this was a murder trial where no departure from the recognized customs would have been permitted. One's ear grows accustomed to questions which put the answer into the mouth of the witness and require merely a monosyllabic assent; and one waits in vain for the objection which, at home, would follow such infractions of the rules of evidence as thunder succeeds lightning. In the Dhingra trial, for instance, the Attorney General did not scruple to ask such questions as the following:
Q: "Did you happen to look through the doorway and into the vestibule and see the prisoner speaking to Sir Curzon Wyllie and did you see him raise his hand and fire four shots into his face, the pistol almost touching him?"
Q: "Did you see Sir Curzon Wyllie collapse?"
Q: "Then, was there an interval of some seconds and then more shots?" (These killed Dr. Lalcaca.)
Nor did he hesitate to put such questions to another witness as:
Q: "Did you hear the noise of four shots and did you then look and see the prisoner and did you see him shoot again?"
A police officer was asked: