Let me ask you this: Do you really think the boy’d shout out a thing like that so the whole neighborhood could hear him? I don’t think so – he’s much too bright for that.
Here’s what I think happened: the old man heard the fight between the boy and his father a few hours earlier. Then, when he’s lying in his bed, he heard a body hit the floor in the boy’s apartment, heard the woman scream from across the street, got to his front door as fast as he could, heard somebody racing down the stairs and *assumed* it was the boy!
I feel sorry for you. What it must feel like to want to pull the switch! Ever since you walked into this room, you’ve been acting like a self-appointed public avenger. You want to see this boy die because you *personally* want it, not because of the facts! You’re a sadist!
It’s always difficult to keep personal prejudice out of a thing like this. And wherever you run into it, prejudice always obscures the truth. I don’t really know what the truth is. I don’t suppose anybody will ever really know. Nine of us now seem to feel that the defendant is innocent, but we’re just gambling on probabilities – we may be wrong. We may be trying to let a guilty man go free, I don’t know. Nobody really can. But we have a reasonable doubt, and that’s something that’s very valuable in our system. No jury can declare a man guilty unless it’s sure.
I’d like to ask you something: you don’t believe the boy’s story. How come you believe the woman’s? She’s one of “them”, too, isn’t she?
We’re not, unless somebody else wants to; but I’d like to find out if an old man who drags one foot when he walks, ’cause he had a stroke last year, could get from his bedroom to his front door in 15 seconds.
I don’t *know* – I’m guessing! I’m also guessing that she probably didn’t put her glasses on when she turned to look casually out of the window – and she herself testified the killing took place just as she looked out, the lights went off a split second later – she couldn’t have had *time* to put them on then!
Here’s another guess: maybe she honestly thought she saw the boy kill his father – I say she only saw a blur!
Look, there was one alleged eye witness to this killing. Someone else claims he heard the killing, saw the boy run out afterwards and there was a lot of circumstantial evidence. But, actually, those two witnesses were the entire case for the prosecution. Supposing they’re wrong?
According to the testimony, the boy looks guilty… maybe he is. I sat there in court for six days listening while the evidence built up. Everybody sounded so positive, you know, I… I began to get a peculiar feeling about this trial. I mean, nothing is that positive. There’re a lot of questions I’d have liked to ask. I don’t know, maybe they wouldn’t have meant anything, but… I began to get the feeling that the defense counsel wasn’t conducting a thorough enough cross-examination. I mean, he… he let too many things go by… little things that…
Maybe. It’s also possible for a lawyer to be just plain stupid, isn’t it? I mean it’s possible.
There’s something else I’d like to talk about for a minute. Thanks. I think we’ve proved that the old man couldn’t have heard the boy say “I’m gonna kill you”, but supposing he did…
But supposing he really did hear it. This phrase, how many times have all of us used it? Probably thousands. “I could kill you for that, darling.” “Junior, you do that once more and I’m gonna kill you.” “Get in there, Rocky, and kill him!”… See, we say it every day. That doesn’t mean we’re gonna kill anyone.
Let me ask you this: do you really think the kid would shout out a thing like that so the whole neighborhood could hear him? I don’t think so; he’s much to bright for that.
Let me ask you this. Do you really think the boy would shout out a thing like that so the whole neighborhood could hear him? I don’t think so. He’s much too bright for that.
Well, I think testimony that could put a boy into the electric chair should be that accurate.
We’re talking about somebody’s life here. We can’t decide it in five minutes.
