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SELLERS
[I've got another there.
(Winking at him.)
I would have got them all on my side it I had more time.
(Goes to LAURA and consoles
her.] Aside and taking seat.)I'll have a disagreement anyhow.
DISTRICT ATTORNEY
May it please the court and Gentlemen of the Jury. You have heard the evidence given here and you are now aware, as I am, that there is not a shadow of a [doubt] that the prisoner committed the highest crime known to the law! Murder! I entreat that you will bear in mind what I am about to say. You know that the American Criminal Jury system is sneered at, is jeered at, and referred to with boundless contempt. You know it is also said that no man can take his place here as a juror until he proves to the court and counsel that he reads neither books nor papers, that he has formed no opinion on any subject, that he is totally incapable of forming an opinion, that his mind is filled with maudlin sentimentality, and his sympathy frame his verdict and not his intellect. And O, Gentlemen, I urge you, I implore you, I beseech you, to weigh the evidence given here with inflexible justice and all mindful of the sacred oath you have taken, to award to this red-handed murderess the doom, the just doom , her awful crime deserves.
(Sits down.)
SELLERS
O, he doesn't seem to grasp the subject at all.
DUFFER
Gentlemen of the Jury, I will not insult your patience, your intelligence, or your generosity by making a labored argument to convince you of what is perfectly patent upon its face, that this poor, abused girl—
SELLERS
How kind and how graceful, so different from that grey headed old cuss.
DUFFER
—in a fit of emotional insanity killed her destroyer. The law has no right and no desire to punish her for it, for the law punishes only criminals of sound mind. I have not another word to say.
(Sits down.)
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