No case is properly prepared unless there is in the court-room
every witness who knows anything about any aspect of the case.
No one can foretell when the unimportant will become the
vital. Most cases turn on an unconsidered point. A
prosecutor once lost what seemed to him the clearest sort of a
case. When it was all over, and the defendant had passed out
of the courtroom rejoicing, he turned to the foreman and asked
the reason for the verdict.
"Did you hear your chief witness say he was a carpenter?"
inquired the foreman.
"Why, certainly," answered the district attorney,
"Did you hear me ask him what he paid for that ready-made pine
door he claimed to be working on when he saw the assault?"
The prosecutor recalled the incident and nodded.
"Well, he said ten dollars--and I knew he was a liar. A door
like that don't cost but four-fifty!"
It is, perhaps, too much to require a knowledge of carpentry
on the part of a lawyer trying an assault case. Yet the juror
was undoubtedly right in his deduction.
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