ons and, in
large measure, determine their verdict. The lawyers for the defence,
therefore, prepare long statements of what they either believe or
pretend to believe to be the law. These statements embrace all the legal
propositions, good or bad, favorable to their side of the case. If
they can induce the judge to follow these so much the better for their
client, for even if they are not law it makes no difference, since the
State has no appeal from an acquittal in a criminal case, no matter how
much the judge has erred. In the same way, but not in quite the same
fashion, the district attorney prepares "requests to charge," but his
desire for favorable instructions should be, and generally is, curbed by
the consideration that if the judge makes any mistake in the law and the
defendant is convicted he can appeal and upset the case. Of course, some
prosecutors are so anxious to convict that they will wheedle or deceive
a judge into giving charges which are not only most inimical to the
prisoner, but so utterly unsound that a reversal is sure to follow; but
when one of these professional bloodhounds is baying upon the trail all
he thinks of is a conviction--that is all he wants, all the public
will remember; to him will be the glory; and when the case is finally
reversed he will probably be out of office. These "requests" cover
pages, and touch upon every phase of law applicable or inapplicable to
the case. Frequently they number as many as fifty, sometimes many more.
It is "up to" the judge to decide "off the bat" which are right and
which are wrong. If he guesses that the right one is wrong or the wrong
one right the defendant gets a new trial.

CHAPTER III. Sensationalism and Jury Trials

For the past twenty-five years we have heard the cry upon all sides
that the jury system is a failure, and to this general indictment is
frequently added the specification that the trials in our higher
courts of criminal justice are the scenes of grotesque buffoonery and
merriment, where cynical juries recklessly disregard their oaths and
where morbid crowds flock to satisfy the cravings of their imaginations
for details of blood and sexuality.

It is unnecessary to question the honesty of those who thus picture the
administration of criminal justice in America. Indeed, thus it probably
appears to them. But before such an arraignment of present conditions
in a highly civilized and progressive nation is accepted as final, it i