The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-13

moral right to kill Carmack. That, gen. tlemen, is the law of this state"
 Decisions Quoted. ! Judge Anderson then devoted nearly an hour to quoting decisions, reading in many instances the entire case reported.
 When a man has abused you and you go to him and demand that he stop it, and you fear you may offend him, and that he may assault you" declared Anderson, you have a right to put a pistol in | your pocket. You have right to go 10 | him to protest and demand. If you have | this right, and the law says you have, then you have a right to defend yourself, I if in the exercise of that right your op- | ponent assaults you.
 "Gentlemen, the law is plain. The Coopers had a right, not only to seek 1 Carmack out, but they had right to | seek him out armed and to defend them- selves if he attempted to assault them. They only exercised their legal right, and | their every act was within the law. q propose now to discuss Mrs. East mans testimony, and to show you why It is not accurate. Not that l believe that Mrs Eastman did not believe every word she said. There are several things that affect the credibility of the witness-her memory, her ability to observe, her con | dition mentally when she witnessed the  1 sider."
 Judge Anderson then read many opin- ions on the value of testimony and showed that jury may weigh a witness mem- ory and credibility without in the least | impugning her integrity.
 Honest, But Mistaken. "Why. gentlemen most of us are honest l hut many of us while honest, are often l mistaken in what we say. We may nave | defective memory or defective vision i, Our hearing may be bad. We may pc excited and startled and lose much of what is happening All these things may | happen to all of us and never affect even | remotely our integrity.
 | Now Mrs. Eastman says she heard I Colonel Cooper say, I have the drop on | you What does that mean? It means l that you have man in your power; | that you have your gun pointed at him. | Did Colonel Cooper have the drop on him? Mrs. Eastman herself says Colonel Coop | CT had no pistol.
 | Mrs. Eastman is a beautiful an ex- ousitely beautiful and surprisingly l charming woman. yield to no one in my admiration for her. But she is del 1 icate, nervous, excitable woman. Let us see some things Mrs. Eastman did not i see She did not see Robin at all until l 1t was nearly over. She did not see l COlOnel cooper TeNOiNei, Scl he SpsS 1 himself he had it drawn. She says Car mack reeled, staggered out into the street and fell It could have not happened gentlemen. If he had reeled and stag l gered out into the street he would have | fallen that way his head not to the north as he was found but with his head 1 to the east She says she did not see Senator Carmack fire, yet we know that he did And I still believe that Mrs. | Eastman believes every word she told ! you was a statement of what she saw. 1 She thinks she saw 1t, but she was ex- cited and frightened and nervous.
 No Place for Lie.
 q want to say to you that there is | no place in big law suit for a lie.
 Robin Cooper, if he had told you any | thing but the truth, would never nave
 been able to make his story fit in with the physical facts in the case, yet it fits, every single detail. even with the devel- l opments brought out by the state." Judge Anderson then analysed Robin s story and declared every word of it was ] reasonable. He showed that the boy could ! have been standing as he said he was, on the pavement above Senator Carmack, l who was in the gutter, and received the ] wound in the shoulder, from between 1 the poles. The wound ranged slightly I upward.
 sThese heart wounds seem to be jokes
 these days The doctors tell you that a ] man can be shot through the heart, the lights and the liver and it Is only a 1 healthy exercise.
 1 "Rut seriously, the doctors who testi- fled that such cases are reported also testified that they are rare; that they themselves never saw one. Let us see. 1 We find two shots through the heart and
 one through the back of the neck. I con- tend that the latter one was the last shot fired and that 1t was fired as Car mack fell That is the reason it is in
 the back of the neck.
 Fitzhugh's Plea.
 But Fftzhugh would have you believe that 1t was inflicted first However, Che
 surgeons say that the instant 1t was in-
 fiicted there would be instant paralysis
 and that Carmack's gun and cigar would
 have dropped at his feet and not have
 been found at his hand.
 q feel that have been travelling over