american tragedy

Chapter 133 (1)
Chapter 323 (1)
At eight o'clock in the morning of the second day, all the newspapers had already been placed on the street stalls, and the big headlines proclaimed to people:

The prosecution of Griffiths ended with a shocking amount of evidence.

Motives and means are disclosed.

The facial scars fit perfectly on one side of the camera.

The mother of the deceased passed out after the dramatic reading of her suicide note.

Mason organizes the evidence so closely and presents the arguments so movingly that Belknap, Jefferson, and Clyde are for a time convinced of their failure.There was nothing they could do now to convince the jury that Clyde was not unpardonable.

Everyone congratulated Mason on the brilliance of his arguments.As for Clyde, he thought that his mother would know what happened yesterday, so he was very depressed.He had to ask Jefferson to wire her and tell her not to believe it, and Frank and Julia and Esta.And, no doubt Sandra is reading these things today too, but after all this time, there is no information! The papers mention Miss X only incidentally, but never show her a picture, and the rich do avoid a lot of trouble .His defense is about to begin today, and he must stand up as the only witness that matters.But he asked himself if he could do it? The crowd, their anger, their hatred made him flustered.After Belknap's cross-examination, Mason was about to deal with him.Belknap and Jefferson were okay, they could ignore it, but he couldn't escape.

Faced with this situation, he spent an hour in the cell with Jefferson and Belknap before finally being brought into court in front of a jury and a nervous audience.Belknap got up and stood in front of the jury, looked at them solemnly in turn, and said:

"Gentlemen, about three weeks ago, the District Attorney told you that he had no doubt that you, the jurors, would, on the basis of the evidence he was about to present, confirm that the criminals in court had been convicted. So far it has been a long, slow process. The process. Even the ignorant and ignorant behavior of a fifteen-year-old child, every unintentional and unfortunate behavior, has been demonstrated in detail in front of you. I have a prejudice against the defendant, but apart from a distorted incident in Kansas City (which is arguably the cruelest and most brutal injustice that I have had the misfortune to encounter in my career), it can be said that this defendant has always lived Lived a life of innocence, vivaciousness, blamelessness, innocence. Like any man of his age anywhere else, you have heard people call him a grown man, a bearded man, a criminal, a man from Evil Messenger of Hell, but he's only 21. Now he's sitting there, and, I can say, all the brutality that's loud, wrong, politically biased, prosecuting Thoughts and emotions, if at this moment I can peel off their contents layer by layer in front of you with a three-inch tongue, you will not look at him in that way, just as you will not stand up from your seat. Get up and fly out the window."

"Gentlemen of the jury, I am sure you and the District Attorney, as well as those in the audience, will be surprised that my colleagues and I, amidst so many interlocking and sometimes slanderous testimonies, And how the defendant is as poised as ever," (here he waved demurely in the direction of his colleague, who was waiting for his entrance.) "However, as everyone can see, we not only A certain dignity which has always been preserved, and has been honored by, a man who not only feels, but knows, that in any legal dispute they have legitimate objects of justice. Certainly you will Think of the words of the poet-on-Avon, 'He's as strong as a triple armor.'”

"As a matter of fact, we are well aware, and unfortunately not understood by the party prosecuting this case, that the very odd and unexpected circumstances surrounding this dramatic and extremely unfortunate death will become clear to you before we finish our case. In the meantime, please Let me tell you, gentlemen, that I have believed since the trial of this case that, if we had not offered our explanation for this depressing tragedy, you would have never held that this brutal act of brutality could be inflicted upon the accused, and you would not Possibly sure! For love is love after all, and the way in which either sex loves, and the love that destroys everything, is not in the same breath as the common prisoner. And remember: we too come from the young, the grown women among you before I was also a girl, you must have a thorough understanding of the useless fanaticism and heartbreak of young people in real life in the future. Don't judge others, lest you be judged. How do you treat others, they will respond to you in the same way .”

"We acknowledge a mysterious lady, her beauty and love-loving charm, and her letters which I cannot here produce, and all these influences on the accused. We also acknowledge his love for her , and we shall prove it, through our own witnesses, by an analysis of some of the testimonies that have been presented here in the past: that the defendant cunningly and lasciviously seduced the lovely—who, unfortunately by accident, Lady of the dead—a departure from the straight and narrow moral path, but these methods are no more than the means of ordinary young people, when they find the girl in their minds surrounded by extremely strict and narrow moral standards. Gentlemen, As your District Attorney said, Roberta Alden belonged to Eclyde Griffiths, and in this relationship that ended in tragedy, the girl was in love forever. He, as he thought then, was in love with her too. As for what other people think, people who love each other don't care much. They are in love, and that's enough!"

"But, gentlemen, I won't dwell on that side of the question, but on our interpretation. Why on earth did Clyde Griffiths go to the Fonda, Utiga, Grass Lake, or University?" What about Patton? Do you think we deliberately disavowed and distorted what they both did? Also, we deny and distort the fact that he would just walk away under the circumstances of her sudden and bizarre death. Misrepresentation? If you are so cruel, even if it is a passing thought, you are the twelve most deceived jurors in the 27 days we have been with jurors and debated."

"Gentlemen, I said that Clyde Griffiths was not guilty. He was. You may think you think he is guilty, but you are wrong. Life is such a ridiculous thing, often a person who is innocent is innocent. Accused of doing something, everything around him seems to prove that he did. Just because of the evidence of circumstances, there have been many very sad and terrible injustices in the past. Be careful! Be careful! Don't be prejudiced and stubborn Fallacies, those wrong judgments based on a certain region, or even religious and moral stereotypes on behavior, so that you do not intend to do this, and you think you have discovered a crime or criminal attempt with good intentions, but this is not the case, and it is also true from the actual situation. Well, from a legal point of view, there is no criminal motive or behavior in the defendant's psychology and behavior. Be careful! Be careful!"

At this point, he paused, as if he was worried.Clyde seemed greatly encouraged by these clever and bold speeches at the beginning, but Belknap went on, and he had to listen carefully not to miss every exciting word.

"Roberta Alden and Clyde Griffiths are engaged and ready to marry, and say she left the Beards house on the sixth of July to marry him. Ah, gentlemen , it's not hard to put a slight twist on a situation. 'Engaged and ready to marry.' That's what the District Attorney emphatically stated, and these things finally lead to the departure on July 21th. In fact, But there is not the slightest evidence that Clyde Griffiths was ever formally engaged to Roberta Alden, or that he consented to the marriage, except for the words in her letter, which you all Clearly, what was said was that he should be held responsible for her physical condition only because it caused her great moral and material worries. Nevertheless, both parties agreed that one was a 23-year-old boy and one It was a [-]-year-old girl, and it was only under this pressure that he agreed to marry.

(End of this chapter)