Brand Whitlock - The Turn of the Balance

Ward's eyes ran rapidly along the row, and rested on the brown-haired, well-formed head of the youngest of the group. He was scarcely more than a boy indeed, and he alone, of all the line, was well dressed. His linen was white, and he wore his well-fitting clothes with a certain vanity and air of style that even his predicament could not divest him of. As Ward glanced at him, an expression of pain came to his face; the color left it for an instant, and then it grew redder than it had been before.

These prisoners were about to be sentenced for various felonies. Two of them, the old man with the white hair and the negro, had been tried, the one for pocket-picking, the other for burglary. The others were to change their pleas from not guilty to guilty and throw themselves on the mercy of the court. They sat there, whispering with one another, gazing about the room, and speculating on what fate awaited them, or, as they would have phrased it, what sentences they would draw. Like most prisoners they were what the laws define as "indigent," that is, so poor that they could not employ lawyers. The court in consequence had appointed counsel, and the young lawyers who now stood and joked about the fates that were presently to issue from the judge's chambers, were the counsel thus appointed. Now and then the prisoners looked at the lawyers, and some of them may have indulged speculations as to how that fate might have been changed–perhaps altogether avoided–had they been able to employ more capable attorneys. Those among them who had been induced by their young attorneys to plead guilty–under assurances that they would thus fare better than they would if they resisted the law by insisting on their rights under it–probably had not the imagination to divine that they might have fared otherwise at the hands of the law if these lawyers had not dreaded the trial as an ordeal almost as great to them as to their appointed clients, or if they had not been so indigent themselves as to desire speedily to draw the fee the State would allow them for their services. Most of the prisoners, indeed, treated these young lawyers with a certain patience, if not forbearance, and now they relied on them for such mercy as the law might find in its heart to bestow. Most of them might have reflected, had they been given to the practice, that on former experiences they had found the breast of the law, as to this divine quality, withered and dry. They sat and glanced about, and now and then whispered, but for the most part they were still and dumb and hopeless. Meanwhile their lawyers discussed and compared them, declaring their faces to be hard and criminal; one of the young men thought a certain face showed particularly the marks of crime, and when his fellows discovered that he meant the face of Danner, they laughed aloud and had a good joke on the young man. The young man became very red, almost as red as Danner himself, whom, he begged, they would not tell of his mistake.

At that moment the door of the judge's chambers opened, and instant silence fell. McWhorter, the judge, appeared. He was a man of middle size, with black curly hair, smooth-shaven face, and black eyes that caught in the swiftest glance the row of prisoners, who now straightened and fixed their eyes on him. McWhorter advanced with a brisk step to the bench, mounted it, and nodding, said:

"You may open court, Mr. Bailiff."

The bailiff let his gavel fall on the marble slab, and then with his head hanging, his eyes roving in a self-conscious, almost silly way, he said:

"Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye, this honorable court is now in session."

The bailiff sat down as in relief, but immediately got up again when the judge said:

"Bring me the criminal docket, Mr. Bailiff."

The bailiff's bent figure tottered out of the court-room. The court-room was very still; the ticking of the clock on the wall could be heard. The judge swung his chair about and glanced out of the windows. Never once did he permit his eyes to rest on the prisoners.

There was silence and waiting, and after a while the bailiff came with the docket. The judge opened the book, put on a pair of gold glasses, and, after a time, reading slowly, said:

"The State versus Patrick Delaney."

The white-haired prisoner patiently held out two hands, marvelously tatooed, and Danner unlocked the handcuffs. At the same moment one of the young lawyers stood forth from the rest, and Lamborn, an assistant prosecutor, rose.

McWhorter was studying the docket. Presently he said:

"Stand up, Delaney."

Delaney rose, kept his eyes on the floor, clasped a hand about his red wrist. Then, for the first time, the judge looked at him.

"Delaney," he said, "have you anything to say why the sentence of this court should not be passed upon you?"

Delaney looked uneasily at the judge and then let his eyes fall.

"No, Judge, yer Honor," he said, "nothing but that I'm an innocent man. I didn't do it, yer Honor."

The remark did not seem to impress the judge, who turned toward the lawyer. This young man, with a venturesome air, stepped a little farther from the sheltering company of his associates and, with a face that was very white and lips that faltered, said in a confused, hurried way:

"Your Honor, we hope your Honor'll be as lenient as possible with this man; we hope your Honor will be as–lenient as possible." The youth's voice died away and he faded back, as it were, into the shelter of his companions. The judge did not seem to be more impressed with what the lawyer had said than he had with what the client had said, and twirling his glasses by their cord, he turned toward the assistant prosecutor.

Lamborn, with an affectation of great ease, with one hand in the pocket of his creased trousers, the other supporting a book of memoranda, advanced and said:

"May it please the Court, this man is an habitual criminal; he has already served a term in the penitentiary for this same offense, and we understand that he is wanted in New York State at this present time. We consider him a dangerous criminal, and the State feels that he should be severely punished."

McWhorter studied the ceiling of the court-room a moment, still swinging his eye-glasses by their cord, and then, fixing them on his nose, looked wisely down at Delaney. Presently he spoke:

"It is always an unpleasant duty to sentence a man to prison, no matter how much he may deserve punishment." McWhorter paused as if to let every one realize his pain in this exigency, and then went on: "But it is our duty, and we can not shirk it. A jury, Delaney, after a fair trial, has found you guilty of burglary. It appears from what the prosecutor says that this is not the first time you have been found guilty of this offense; the experience does not seem to have done you any good. You impress the Court as a man who has abandoned himself to a life of crime, and the Court feels that you should receive a sentence in this instance that will serve as a warning to you and to others. The sentence of the Court is–" McWhorter paused as if to balance the scales of justice with all nicety, and then he looked away. He did not know exactly how many years in prison would expiate Delaney's crime; there was, of course, no way for him to tell. He thought first of the number ten, then of the number five; then, as the saying is, he split the difference, inclined the fraction to the prisoner and said:

"The sentence of the Court is that you be confined in the penitentiary at hard labor for the period of seven years, no part of your sentence to be in solitary confinement, and that you pay the costs of this prosecution."

Delaney sat down without changing expression and held out his hands for the handcuffs. The steel clicked, and the scratch of the judge's pen could be heard as he entered the judgment in the docket.