I9I4.] PSYCHOLOGY OF Jl/RORS AND JURIES. 319 



thinking, appeal for retrial should have serious consideration by the 

 judges. In such a case the defense in not weak because the lawyer 

 is weak, not because the defense has not been properly worked up 

 but because all the activity, all the pictoriality, all the interest, lies 

 with the plaintiff. One woman slips ; a hundred thousand do 

 not slip ; but they never come on the witness stand. Moreover, the 

 mind assumes that unless the case were good no photographs would 

 have been taken, as the risk of recoil would have been too great. 



In cases where medical experts are called to testify lawyers are 

 too much inclined to display their crammed knowledge of the anat- 

 omy and physiology of injured limbs. Direct and cross-examination 

 in these cases are sometimes carried to absurd length and minuteness. 

 It makes little difference to a jury how a nerve moves the muscle 

 and how the life process itself produces movement. I am quite 

 aware that some of these foolish professional displays are made 

 with the hope of discrediting the opposite expert witness but as a 

 rule they are wearisome and even ludicrous — and neither of these 

 conditions helps the cause. 



Whatever makes for straightforward simplicity counts for the 

 jury's favor. It is then that the real evidence weighs at its true 

 value. Of course there are jurymen who admire adroitness, 

 shrewdness, cleverness, even craftiness in an attorney and are much 

 influenced by that admiration rather than by the real merits of the 

 case. But these very attainments or methods work the other way 

 with many jurors; and the insolent brow-beating of witnesses or 

 manifest effort to confuse and " rattle " a simple-minded and honest 

 witness is pretty sure to awaken indignation in the jury and recoil 

 on the parties indulging in that kind of practice. This indignation 

 is no part of the evidence which jurors are sworn to decide the case 

 upon but it goes for evidence as weight in the mental balance. 



And on this point, when the court orders a speciffc verdict with- 

 out consulting the mind of the jury, is it not virtually ordering pos- 

 sible perjury or, in effect, subornation? Seeing their liability to this 

 kind of termination to their labors jurors sometimes grow lax or in- 

 dignant, according to their temper. They become puppets either 

 way and official " evidence " becomes of less moral moment in their 

 service. 



