"Over there," said Judge Sabath, "is a man who has been a juror in
criminal cases at least a dozen times."
His honor pointed to a short, thin man with a derby on the back of his
head and a startling mustache, concealing almost half of his wizened face.
The man was sitting a bit childishly on a window ledge in the hall of the
Criminal Court building swinging his legs and chewing rhythmically on a
plug of tobacco.
"They let him go this morning while picking a jury for a robbery case
before me," said the judge. "He tried to stay on, but neither side wanted
him. You might get a story out of him. I think he's broken-hearted."
* * * * *
The short, thin man with the derby, swinging his legs from the window
ledge said his name was Martin.
"That's true," he said, "what the judge said. I been a juror fourteen
times. I was on five murders and four big robberies and then I was on five
different assorted kinds of crimes."
"How do you like being a juror, Mr. Martin?"
"Well, sir, I like it a lot. I can say that out of the fourteen times I
been a juror I never lost a case."
Mr. Martin aimed at the new cuspidor--and missed.
"There's some jurors as loses nearly every case they're on. They give in
first crack. But take the Whitely murder trial I was on. That was as near
as I ever come to losing a case. But I managed to hang the jury and the
verdict was one of disagreement. Whitely was innocent. Anybody could have
told that with half an eye."
"How long have you been serving on juries, Mr. Martin?"
"Going nigh on twenty-three years. I had my first case when I was a young
man. It was a minor case--a robbery. I won that despite my youth and
inexperience. In those days the cases were much harder than now on account
of the lawyers. The old-fashioned lawyer was the talkingest kind of a
nuisance I ever had to deal with. He always reminded me of somebody
talking at a mark for two dollars a week.
"I don't refer to the orators. I mean the ones who talk during the case
itself and who slow things up generally by bothering the witnesses to
death with a lot of unnecessary questions. Although the orators are pretty
bad, too. There's many a lawyer who has lost out with me on account of the
way he made faces in the windup. One of my rules as a juror, a successful
one, I might say, is, 'Always mistrust a lawyer who talks too fancy.'"
* * * * *
"Judge Sabath just said that they let you go in his court this morning."
"H'm," snorted Mr. Martin. "That was the lawyer. He's mad at me because he
lost a case two years ago that I was on. I won it and he holds a grudge.
That's like some lawyers. They don't like the man who licks them.
"But you were asking about the qualifications of an all-around juryman.
I'll give 'em to you. First and foremost you want a man of wide experience
in human nature. I spend most of my time in the courts when I ain't
serving as juror studyin' human nature. You might say that all human
nature is the same. But it's my experience that some is more so than
others.
"Well, when you know human nature the next step is to figure out about
lawyers. Lawyers as a whole is the hardest nut the juror has to crack. To
begin with, they're deceivin', and if you let them they'll take advantage
of your credulity. There's Mr. Erbstein, for instance, the criminal
lawyer. He's a pretty smart one, but I won a case from him only four years
ago and he's never forgiven me. I was juror in a manslaughter trial he was
trying to run. He thought himself pretty foxy, but when it came to a
showdown I put it all over him. There was a guy who was foreman of the
jury that time who said I had it all over Mr. Erbstein as an argufier and
that my arguments made his look like ten cents. I won easily on five
ballots and Mr. Erbstein has never forgave me.
* * * * *
"But I'll go on about the qualifications. First of all, I never read
newspapers. Never. No juror should ought to know anything about anything
that's going on. I found that out in my youth when I first started in. The
first question they ask you is, 'What have you heard about this case and
what have you read or said about it?' That's the first one. Well, the
right answer is 'nothing.'
"If you can say nothing and prove you're right they'll gobble you up as a
juror. For that reason I avoid all newspapers, and right now I don't know
what big crimes or cases have been committed at all. I have a clean,
unprejudiced mind and I keep it that way.
"Nextly," said Mr. Martin, trying a new sight on the cuspidor, "I don't
belong to any lodges whatsoever. They're a handicap. Because if the
defendant is a Mason and you are a Elk he would rather have a brother
Mason be juror than a strange Elk. So I don't belong to any of them and I
don't go to church. I also have no convictions whatsoever about politics
and have no favorites of any kind in the matter of authors or statesmen or
anything. What I try to do is to keep my mind clean and unprejudiced on
all subjects."
"Why do you like serving as a juror?"
Mr. Martin stared.
"Why?" he repeated. "Because it's every man's duty, naturally. And
besides," he went on, narrowing his eyes into shrewd slits, "I've just
been luckier than most people. Most people only get called a few times
during their life. But I get called regularly every year and sometimes
twice a year and sometimes four and five times a year for service. Of
course, I ain't boasting, but the city has recognized my merits, no doubt,
as a juror, knowing all the cases I've won, and it perhaps shows a little
partiality to me for that reason. But I feel that I have earned it and I
would like nothing said about it or any scandal started."
"What do you think of this Taylor death mystery in Los Angeles, Mr.
Martin?"
"Ha, ha," said Mr. Martin, "there you're tryin' to catch me. You thought
you could put that over on me without my seein' through it, didn't you?
That's just the way the lawyers try to trap me when I'm sittin' on one of
my cases. I ain't ever heard of this Taylor death mystery, not reading the
papers, you see."
"That's too bad, Mr. Martin. It's quite a story." Mr. Martin sighed and
slipped from the window ledge, shaking down his wrinkled, high-water
pants.
"Yes," he sighed, a sudden wistfulness coming into his rheumy eyes.
"Things have been pretty slow around here. Chicago used to be the place
for a juror--none better. But I been thinkin' of going west. Not that I
heard anything, mind you, about any of these cases." Mr. Martin glowered
virtuously. "I never read the papers, sir, and have no prejudices
whatsoever.
"But I've just been feelin' lately that there are wider opportunities in
the west for a man of my experience and record than are left around here."