Page:Held to Answer (1916).pdf/447

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his mawkish plea for sympathy, as I believe he will go, he goes to be catalogued with criminals, and to be damned forever in the esteem of his neighbors.

"To avert that, would not your Honor expect this defendant to be willing to perjure himself without a qualm? Will a man who has lived a lie before a whole community for five years hesitate to add another in an endeavor to avert his impending fate? Will a man who has stolen the jewels of his trusted friend hesitate to swear falsely in denial of such an act? Will a man who has worked upon the sympathy of his friends to secure large sums of money for a purpose so doubtful that it is undisclosed— Will he hesitate to work upon the sympathies here by words and implications, by innuendoes that are as false to religion as to fact?

"Your Honor knows that he would not so hesitate. Your Honor knows, through long familiarity with the law of evidence, that the testimony of a defendant in his own behalf, because of his intense interest in the outcome of his case, is always to be weighed with extreme care.

"I believe under such circumstances not only the motives, the springs of action, but the probable mental processes of the witness are to be taken into account. I ask your Honor what a defendant involved in the mesh of circumstantial evidence here presented would probably do under these circumstances. Your own judgment answers with mine that he would probably lie, and exactly as this defendant has lied!"

Again Searle turned and shook his long arm with insulting undulations in the direction of the defendant, after which he continued:

"Turning from probabilities to experience, I ask your Honor out of his memory of years of service upon the bench, what does the arrested thief—taken like this one,