Frank Banta

“ What else do you need?"
"Yeah!" agreed the judge, outraged.
"We need some plain, old-fashioned evidence of a crime," answered the juryman, unperturbed.
"Old-fashioned?" The fuming prosecutor rejected the heresy, pushing it away from him with both hands. "This is all unscientific now," he warned. "The Very Complicated Monstrous Proximilator machine—especially the new model with the forty-three meters which replaces the old thirty-nine meter machine—is the ne plus ultra of justice!"
"Oh, no, it isn't," dissented the foreman. "Did your evidence place the deadly weapon in the defendant's hand? ”

“ Then he folded his arms and waited until all the forty-three meters ceased their dancing and went back to zero. That done, he turned to the jury.
"In this machine rests the proof of the crime charged against the defendant," he said dramatically, patting the smooth gray side of the machine. "This machine will tell you all you need to know about the murder. Oh, to be sure, I shall show you the corpus delicti presently; but why and how this crime was committed shall be revealed only by this machine's stimulation of the deceased's brain. She will herself relate who her killer was!" ”

“ Attendants pushing an ambulance cot wheeled what was left of murdered Fannie Bork into the center of the courtroom. The body was covered with a white sheet, except for the long, slim feet which were sticking out. ”