St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-03-03
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- A youthful emperor of medieval
times once took it into his imperial
head to visit court of law. The at
torney for the plaintiff had just be-
gun his plea. So apt were the ad-
Focate's illustrations, so irrefutable
.his arguments, that his imperial maj
1esty was upon the point of bringing
The proceedings to an immediate
close, that he might, in his own per
son, pronounce judgment in favor
Of the innocent and injured subject
who had commenced the action. As
gracious condescension, however,
the emperor yielded for the time to
! the claims of judicial formality, and
/ the attorney for the defense arose to
speak. This sagacious orator speed
! ilY-demonstrated that his client, the
defendant, was a slowly expiring
victim impaled on the spikes of a
horEid conspiracy, the least revolt
ing feature of which was that the
sou1less outcast who accused his
client had unblushingly sought to
further his own villainy by entrap-
ping therein the sacred offices of the
law, the wisdom of the learned
judge, and even the awe-compelling
presence of Sovereign'S imperial
majesty. The emperors counte-
nance began to change; and, as all
the arguments of the plaintiffs
counsel were set at naught, all his
evidence held up to mockery, and
all his assumed facts riddled with
uncertainty and doubt, the monarch
at last gave way to disappointment
and disgust. Execrating the profess
sion which would convince an honest
man that both sides are always in
nocent, or that only the other side
is ever guilty, the exasperated
ruler declared that never again
would he set foot within the halls OF
so-called justice.
To this day the incongruity of the
advocates arguments are only
equaled by the inconsistency of the
witnesses testimony Those who
listen, on the one hand, to the plain
statements in proof of the whiteness
of black, and, on the other hand to
the ingenious narratives in support
of the blackness of white, may
sometimes feel that the Abyssinian
prince was justified in ordaining
that in no law suit should more
than one side be allowed to swear
it's witnesses; for how" asked tho
innocent reformer, with primitive
simplicity, "can one side contradict
the other, and both sides tell tho
truth? and is it not a sin to swear
to a lie?"
The direct and sweeping contradic-
tons in which witnesses indulge are
the more remarkable when the tes-
timony is that of experts. These
witnesses are usually men of high
professional standing, and, there
fore, of incorruptible personal char
acter and acknowledged intelligence.
Their testimony, however, is so fire.
quently contradictory and Elusive
that its employment has, in a man
ner, fallen into disrepute At
potable local trial ;ha PRESIDING
judge has recently decided to dis
'pense almost entirely with the serv-
ICES of the expert witness. 1t is
absurd to behave that the atmos-
phere of court room can trans
form irreproachable gentlemen into
mendacious tricksters, broadly de-
veloped scholars into Illogical ounces.
The fault is clearly not with the ex-
pert witnesses themselves, but with
the manner in which their testi-
mony is utilized.
The circumstances of any extend
ed human action resemble nothing
so much as one of those Janus-faced
poems popular in the last. century.
By reading the same words under a,
slightly different arrangement, loyal
ty was resolved into treason, devo-
ton into deteStatio noble senti-
ment into silly doggerel. This
chameleon nature sllnDId render cir
cumstantial evidence the least val
liable of all evidence, unless doubly
substantiated. 1t should always be
secondary, yet it is commonly placed
in the first rank
The professions most versed in
these interesting, yet complicated,
subjects have been asked to set
forth the actual value of the two
sorts of testimony, and the obliga-
tions attaching to their employment
Their valuable conclusions, as given
below, will enlighten many who have
had of late just reason to feel that
legal testimony may prove every
thing but the facts.