The Prisoner at the Bar Book Reviews

The Prisoner at the Bar by Arthur Train Book Summary

The prisoner at the bar is a figure little known to most of us. The newspapers keep us steadily informed as to the doings of all sorts of criminals up to the time of their capture, and prison literature is abundant, but just how the criminal becomes a convict is not a matter of common knowledge. This, however, does not prevent the ordinary citizen from expressing pronounced and, frequently, vociferous opinions upon our methods of administering criminal justice, in the same way that he stands ready at any time to criticise the Darwinian theory, free trade or foreign missions. Full knowledge of any subject is inevitably an impediment to forcible asseveration. Generalities are easy to formulate and difficult to disprove. The man who sits with his feet up and his chair tilted back in the "drummer's" hotel will inform you that there is no such thing as criminal justice and that the whole judiciary, state and federal, is "owned" or can be bought; you yourself doubtless believe that the jury system is a failure and successfully evade service upon it; while your neighbor is firmly convinced that prosecutors secure their positions by reason of their similarity to bloodhounds and retain them by virtue of the same token.
The only information available to most people on this exceedingly important subject is that offered by the press, and the press (save in the case of sensational murder trials) usually confines itself to dramatic accounts of the arrest of the more picturesque sort of criminals, with lurid descriptions of their offences. The report or "story" concludes with the statement that "Detective-Sergeant Smith immediately arraigned his prisoner (Robinson) before Magistrate Jones, who committed the latter to jail and adjourned the hearing until the following Tuesday." This ends the matter, and the grewsome or ingenious details of the crime having been served up to satisfy the public appetite, and the offender having been locked up, there is nothing, from the reporters' point of view, any longer in the story. We never hear of Robinson again unless he happens to be the president of a bank or a degenerate millionaire. He is "disposed of," as they say in the criminal reports, without exciting anybody's interest, and his conviction or acquittal is not attended by newspaper comment.
If on the other hand the case be one of sensational interest we are treated daily to long histories of the defendant and his family, illustrated by grotesque reproductions from the ancestral photograph album. We become familiar with what he eats and drinks, the number of cigars he smokes and his favorite actor and author. The case consumes months in preparation and its trial occupies weeks. A battalion of "special" talesmen marches to the court house,—"the standing army of the gibbet," as one of my professional brethren (on the other side of the bar) calls them. As each of the twelve is chosen his physiognomy appears on the front page of an evening edition, a tear dropping from his eye or his jaws locked in grim determination, in accordance with the sentiments of the editor or the policy of the owner. Then follows a pictorial procession of witnesses. The prosecutor makes a full-page address to the public in the centre of which appears his portrait, heroic size, arm sawing the air.
"I am innocent!" cries a purple defendant, in green letters.
"Murderer!" hisses a magenta prosecutor, in characters of vermilion.
Finally the whole performance comes to an end without anybody having much of an idea of what has actually taken place, and leaving on the public mind an entirely false and distorted conception of what a criminal trial is like.
The object of this book is to correct the very general erroneous impression as to certain phases of criminal justice, and to give a concrete idea of its actual administration in large cities in ordinary cases,—cases quite as important to the defendants and to the public as those which attract widespread attention.
The millionaire embezzler and the pickpocket are tried before the same judge and the same jury, and the same system suffices to determine the guilt or innocence of the boy who has broken into a cigar store and the actress who has murdered her lover. It is in crowded cities, like New York, containing an excessive foreign-born population, that the system meets with its severest test, and if tried and not found wanting under these conditions it can fairly be said to have demonstrated its practical efficiency and stability. Has the jury system broken down? Are prosecutors habitually vindictive and over-zealous? It is the hope of the writer that the chapters which follow may afford some data to assist the reader in formulating an intelligent opinion upon these and kindred subjects. It is needless to say that no attempt is made to discuss police corruption, the increase or decrease of crime, or penology in general, and the writer has confined himself strictly to that period of the criminals' history described in the title as "AT THE BAR."
To my official chief, William Travers Jerome, and to my associates, Charles Cooper Nott, Charles Albert Perkins, and Nathan A. Smyth, I desire to acknowledge my gratitude for their advice and assistance; to my friend, Leonard E. Opdycke, who suggested the collection and correlating of these chapters, I wish to express my thanks for his constant interest and encouragement; but my debt to these is naught compared to that which I owe to her to whom this book is dedicated, who, with unsparing pains, has read, re-read and revised these chapters in manuscript, galley and page and who has united the functions of critic, censor and collaborator with a patience, good humor, and discretion which make writing a joy and proof-reading a vacation.
Arthur Train.

Bar Harbor, Me.,
Sept. 1, 1906.

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