Arthur Train

“ One who viewed it as his duty to his God, his country, and himself to convict by any means at his command every hapless defendant brought to the bar of justice.
Through his pertinacity, his resourcefulness, and his lack of scruple he had achieved great notoriety as a prosecutor. Lawyers feared him, defendants shuddered at the mere thought of facing his merciless cross-examination; for he was without consideration to the former or sympathy for the latter. He had no bowels or mercies. ”

“ The jury turned to the defense.
“Take the stand, Mr. Mooney,” directed Mr. Tutt, while the Bloodhound licked his lips.
Paddy Mooney felt his way round behind the jury box and to the witness chair. He knew that he was innocent, but he knew that he was going to be pilloried on cross-examination and utterly discredited. He was an ex-convict. That would be enough to send him up again. But unless he took the stand and denied that the weapon was his the jury would have no choice—would have to convict him. It was a slim chance but it was worth taking. No use giving up without a fight! ”

“ Dougherty, the tiny, bald-headed clerk with the big mustaches that made him look like an animated mushroom, picked up the indictments on the top of the blue pile in front of him.
“Patrick Mooney and Daniel Mulligan,” he intoned as if officiating at the high altar of the cathedral, “you are jointly indicted for the crime of burglary in the third degree, grand larceny in the first degree, assault in the first degree, receiving stolen goods and carrying concealed weapons. How say you? Do you plead guilty or not guilty?” ”

“ There is life in the old dog yet—old Tutt, we mean! So far Billy the Bloodhound has but opened the door and entered the court-room, and Mr. Tutt has but turned to gaze at him. Let us reserve our lamentations until we see what will happen when they meet. Will not the gods lend courage and strength to the kindly old lawyer, who never yet did aught but good, although mayhap he may have done it in queer ways? ”

“ Tutt, who on more than one celebrated occasion had shown the braggart up for what he was. To his ancient grudge, fed fat by years of successful opposition upon the old lawyer’s part, was now added the smart of present insult. His rage against Mooney for not being willing to plead guilty fanned his fury against Mr. Tutt, and his hatred of Mr. Tutt transformed his anger against Mooney to poisonous serpents. To be in any way foiled made him a madman.
“Come here!” he growled at Delaney as he dragged him into the corridor. ”

“ I have but one more question to ask of him, and upon his answer I stake my client’s liberty. Let this witness but answer any way he may see fit—yes or no, I care not which—give any reply at all that may be officially recorded here, and not hereafter be disputed or denied by him—and these twelve men may return a verdict against my client.”
Something in the old lawyer’s tone drew the jury as one man toward the front of the box. Judge Watkins was gazing intently at Mr. Tutt. The faces in the court-room surged up and down like ocean waves beneath O’Brien’s smarting eyes. He was gaffed himself. ”

“ If one stood for him he wasn’t so bad, and if he hadn’t been a crook he might easily have been a power for good instead of a power for evil. It is not easy to overestimate that power, for he was the grand vizier of the most powerful public office-holder in the United States, not even excepting the President himself. He could make or break a cop or blast the reputation of any man in the community at will. This the Honorable William Francis O’Brien! ”

“ Should we not praise, rather than condemn, the young enthusiast who is willing to sacrifice his virtue, his ideals, his very soul in order that some ruffian may hang? Should we not pay tribute to one who is willing to be damned for the glory of God?
Judge Watkins looked searchingly around the court room until his eye came to rest in a far corner.
“I will assign Mr. Ephraim Tutt to the case,” said he, and at the summons the old lawyer arose from his seat and, stovepipe hat in hand, approached the bar. ”

“ I shall therefore ask Your Honor to withdraw from the consideration of the jury all the counts in the indictment except that for carrying concealed weapons.”
He spoke as if with an earnest hope for salvation—and the jury viewed him with approbation. The fox! He knew that Mooney could not meet the charge without taking the stand and admitting that he had been in prison, although had all the counts been left in the indictment the jury might well have been led to render a general verdict of acquittal, owing to the obvious unreliability of Mulligan’s testimony.
“The People rest,” said O’Brien. ”

“ Then the first cop said he found a gun on me. It’s a plant, judge, I didn’t have one. What would I want with a gun, judge? What I want is a chance to earn an honest living!”
He made his plea doggedly, yet with obvious hopelessness, for he no longer had any faith in “the course of justice.”
Judge Watkins, sent down from Utica by his friend the governor to hold a special criminal trial term and so relieve the congestion in the Tombs Prison, beckoned to Mr. Dougherty, who elevated himself upon his glossy little tiptoes and held a whispered colloquy with His Honor across the edge of the dais. ”

“ A police officer had sworn to finding a loaded pistol on the prisoner, and a self-confessed crook had corroborated him; the defendant had vehemently denied it, although the force of his denial had been somewhat tempered by his admission of having been previously convicted of assault. In view of the judge’s admonition that the burden of proof would be on the prosecution to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt, the jury might acquit. Something must be done. O’Brien did not hesitate. ”

“ You can have torchlight processions galore and political-fusion love feasts and spasms of civic virtue, but cops will remain cops, and crooks will remain crooks, and out of the enmity between their respective seeds will spring all the evils of any sort of warfare—brutality and malign trickery and schrecklichkeit. This hateful contest between human rats and human ferrets rarely fails to contaminate or at any rate to harden most of those who take part in it. ”

“ At three feet he sprang!
“Mister Mooney, have you ever been convicted of a crime?”
“Yes,” answered the defendant in a husky voice.
“Of what crime?”
“Assault.”
“Ah! And you say you are a peaceable sort of person?”
“Yes.”
“When did you get out of jail?”
“Last week.”
The jury looked at one another. The poison had begun to work. But the dose might be too small. O’Brien intended to take no chances. As he would have expressed it, he was going to “give him the gaff.” He beckoned Delaney to the rail.
“What have you got on him?” he asked. “Give it to me quick.”
“He’s an old-timer,” stammered the cop. ”

“ While Delaney is waiting for the elevator to do his master’s bidding let it be explained that when a criminal, or anybody else, for that matter, goes upon the witness stand to testify, he may be asked upon cross-examination by the opposing counsel any fact as to himself or his past which may tend to discredit him, for if he be a rascal and unworthy of credence the jury are entitled to know it so as to be guided by that knowledge in the performance of their holy office. ”

“ He’s an old-timer—Gas House Gang. If he won’t plead, stick him right on trial. It’s a pipe! A conviction sure!”
The Bloodhound nodded.
“Leave him to me! Here, you!”—addressing Mooney and Mr. Tutt together and as one—“plead guilty and I’ll give you attempted grand in the second.”
Mr. Tutt gravely shook his head.
“No,” he replied. “I cannot let an innocent man falsely admit under any conditions that he is guilty.”
O’Brien’s face hardened.
“Suit yourself!” he snapped back. “If he doesn’t he’ll get the limit.”
“Not unless he’s convicted!” murmured Mr. Tutt. ”

“ Tutt gravely shook his head.
“I prefer to have him answer it,” he said.
“I know nothing about it at all!” protested Mooney. Once more he turned to the bench. “Your Honor,” he cried, “he’s framin’ me! I——”
Judge Watkins banged his gavel.
“You will have your chance to explain on the redirect,” he remarked coldly, for he, too, was now convinced that the witness was a desperate criminal.
“That is all!” declared O’Brien, as with an air of triumph he threw the book ostentatiously on the table in front of the jury box. The defendant was cooked. ”

“ Tutt’s good-natured yet searching cross-examination. Indeed, he soon became so involved in contradictions as to Mooney’s part in the affair that no man in his senses would have convicted a dog of the larceny of a bone upon his testimony. One piece of evidence, however, remained unshaken—Delaney’s testimony that he had taken a loaded pistol from Mooney’s pocket; and Delaney had not been in any way discredited under cross-examination. Quickly O’Brien shifted his position. As a strategist he had no equal. ”

“ O’Brien! I know you are!” declared Delaney in those tones of unctuous adoration that were as parmacety to the inward bruises of the Bloodhound’s soul. “’Tis the next district attorney you’re going to be!”
“Then get busy! Get busy!” ordered O’Brien, stalking back toward the court room.
The reader might well be pardoned were he incredulous of what O’Brien and Delaney purposed to do. Fortunately such prosecutors are rare; but once in a generation—perhaps even more often—they arise ”

“ And then”—he bent over past Mooney and leered into Mr. Tutt’s face—“and then be damned to you!”
As the court officer marched Mooney back to the pen a hand pulled Mr. Tutt by the coat tails. He turned and looked into the homely face of the girl in the shawl.
“Oh, sir,” she begged, “for God’s sake don’t let them frame him! That brute Delaney was a witness against him on his first trial. He’s Morrison’s man. They’ve made up their minds to railroad him. Oh, sir! Save him! He’s a brave, good lad that never harmed anyone. ”

“ Yet neither of these limitations amounts to anything, and the latter instead of being a handicap to a prosecutor really is an advantage; for often a lawyer asks a question from which the jury infers something which is not true and which the lawyer could not prove to be true if he were allowed to try to do so in rebuttal. ”

“ Will Your Honor set the case down for the twenty-first for trial?”
The judge nodded and made a note, and the stout lawyer turned away, about to resume his seat.
“Next!” shouted Phelan to the world at large. “Next!”
The taller of the two prisoners—a plug-ugly—wheeled from the rail and started on the return trip. The other did not stir. He was a much smaller man, hardly five feet six, and of a different make altogether. He might have been your plumber, or electrician, or the grocer’s clerk who takes your order at the side door ”