The trial proceeded; the witnesses witnessed in their various
tongues, the perspiring arresting officer reduced their statements
to the common denominator of the judge's single tongue, and the
smirking bullet-headed defendant was hopelessly buried under the
evidence. Wherefore, when the shining black face of his lawyer,
retained during the two minutes between the "Oye!" and the opening
of the case, rose above the scene to purr:
"Your Honor, the prosecution has shown no case. I move the charge
against my client be quashed."
I choked myself just in time to keep from gasping aloud, "Well, of
all the nerve!" Never will I learn that the lawyer's profession
admits lying on the same footing with truth in the defense of a
culprit.
"Cause shown," mumbled the Judge without looking up from his
writing, "defendant bound over for trial in the circuit court."
A week later, therefore, there was a similar scene a story higher
in the same building. Here on Thursdays sits one of the three
members of the Zone Supreme Court. Jury trial is rare on the
Isthmus--which makes possibly for surer justice. This time there
was all the machinery of court and I appeared only in my legal
capacity. The judge, a man still young, with an astonishingly
mobile face that changed at least once a minute from a furrowy
scowl with great pouting lips to a smile so broad it startled, sat
in state in the middle of three judicial arm-chairs, and the case
proceeded.
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