"May it please the court, and ladies and gentlemen of the jury; For a period of something like five hundred years the Anglo-Saxon has seen fit to place the final adjustment of the question of justice in the hands of twelve men. In the evolution of the law, that number has been increased until now in this state we have fourteen. Likewise, in the evolution of the law and in the face of the vast amount of public protest, and in the face of the most reluctant world, we have enlarged the term jurors to include women jurors. This is the first time that I personally have ever tried a lawsuit in which ladies sat in the jury.
HUGO GERLOT
"The state has told you why this case is one of grave responsibility for them. Allow me to tell you why this is one of grave responsibility for you. One hundred and ninety-six witnesses have appeared for the defendant in this case. Yesterday, counsel brought home the fact that many of these witnesses were not residents of this community, were without homes, without any permanent places of abode. All true. The responsibility that you have in this case is commensurate with the fact that the case reveals to you, as it were, a cross-section of our lives. You who are property-qualified have a responsibility to pass upon the liberties and the lives of a body of men who are propertyless. If there is any change in men's thoughts and views as they acquire a home, as they settle down, as they marry, as they bring into the world children, then I ask you in all fairness to attempt to put yourselves in the places of this defendant and of this defendant's witnesses who have taken the stand, and to realize that your responsibility here is commensurate with the fact that the testimony reveals, as it were, a most deplorable condition of modern life. In other words, your responsibility here is that of measuring out absolute and complete justice between warring elements in our modern life, not for one moment allowing your judgment to be swerved by the fact that one class of witnesses here are witnesses of social position, are witnesses of property qualifications, are witnesses with homes, while, on the other hand, the witnesses called by the defense were witnesses from the four parts of the earth, witnesses whose only claim to your consideration is that they have built the railroads, that they have laid the ties, that they have dug the tunnels, that they have harvested the crops, that they have worked from one end of the country to the other, in season and out, floating from job to job.
"In most jurisdictions, the defendant has the opportunity of either a grand jury investigation or of a preliminary; in other words, he is in some degree advised of what evidence he is going to be called upon to meet. In this case, we came in here on the 5th day of March with no information whatsoever relative to the State's case other than that given us from the four corners of the instrument on file here, known as the information, together with the fact that on that information there were the names of some three hundred or more witnesses. That was all we had. We were further handicapped in view of the fact that we did not have behind us all the resources of the State of Washington and the county of Snohomish, neither did we have behind us all of the resources of various business interests, neither did we have behind us all the resources of allied business on this west coast, as represented by Mr. Veitch."
Mr. Veitch: To which I take an exception, if the court please.
The Court: Exception allowed.
Mr. Veitch: On a matter of personal privilege, I have a right to characterize that statement as a deliberate misstatement of the fact.
Mr. Moore: Mr. Veitch has not seen fit to explain why he was here.