Los Angeles herald., 1908-01-20
TIA w SA Us
LET ALL HEAR
WIFE'S STORY
PRISONER OBJECTS TO SECRET
SESSION
BELIEVES JEROME PLANS SEVERE
SS-EXAMINATloN
Justice Bowling viii Decide Today
Whether to Exclude Spectators
and Newspaper Re-
porters
Ry Associat- l Press.

Py Associat- Press.
NEW YORK. Jan. 19-When the
Thaw trial is resumed tomorrow morn
ing, Justice Dowling will be called upon
to determine whether the testimony Of
Evelyn Nesbit Thaw shall be taken
behind closed doors.
1t is freely predicted that he will re-
fuse to exclude both public and news
paper representatives. but that COM
promise ma be reached by the ex-
clusion of those who come only from
idle or morbid curiosity. By leaving
the newspaper men in the court room
the constitutional provision as to public
trials would be met and the young
woman on the stand would have to face
only a handful of people as compared
with the vast crowd which thronged
the court last Friday afternoon.
AS to keeping the story out of print,
Justice Bowling told District Attorney
Jerome, when he sprang his surprising
suggestion, that if any newspaper
cared to repeat the details of the re-
cital it could do so simply by reference
to it's files of year ago.
Justice Downing stated on Friday
hat he would hear further suggestions
from counsel tomorrow morning, pro-
vided. of course, there should be a
general consent to the closing of the
doors-a thing never before done in
this jurisdiction in a murder trial.
Llttleton Does Not Agree
Martin W. Littleton. Thaw's chief
counsel, who partly concurred in the
district attorneys motion when it was
frst made, has decided to withdraw
I,ot nd fha tier
entirely in the discretion of the court.
Under these circumstances, it is de-
clared, Justice Dowling will not at
tempt to keep the proceedings secret,
but he may cooperate with attorneys
in an endeavor to keep the general pub
| lie out of the court room during the
young woman's examination on the
| witness stand.
The non-concurrence of the defense
in the plan for a closed hearing is said
to be due to the attitude of Thaw HIM
self, who believes that he sees in Dis
trict Attorney Jeromes move a motive
other than the public morals, on which
he based it in his address to Justice
Dowling.
Thaw believes that behind closed
doors the prosecutor would go even
further in his cross-examination of his
wife than he did at the first trail, when,
with pitiles1 persistence, he drew from
her many of the details of the story
which were omitted in the direct evil
dence-details which did not reach the
public through any newspaper.
Mr.. Jerome based his cross-axam-
ination last year on the ground of
testing the creditability of the witness,
and under the rulings of Justice Fitz-
gerald this threw the doors wide open.
To Cut Testimony Short
Justice Downing is inclined, however,
to cut down both direct and cross-eX-
animation to the material facts, and
1t is generally believed that neither
Mr. Littleto.i nor Mr.. Jerome will put
the defendant'e wife through the same
severe ordeal as last year.
When young Mrs. Thaw has con-
cluded her testimony and has been put
through the fire of cross examination,
the elder Mrs. Thaw will probably con-
clude her evidence. This will leave but
three or four regular witnesses to be
heard before the six insanity experts
retained by th' defense are put upon
the stand to answer a hypothetical
question covering all of the question.
Two of these physicians, Drs. Evans
and Wagner, will tell again of the ex-
animation they made of Thaw in the
Tombs prison following the tragedy.
The trial will be pushed with all pos
sible haste to an early conclusion.