The prosecutor wound down like some superbly coiffed mechanoid in need of a mainspring crank. With a last, tired flash of his smile, with a last rhetorical flourish, with a last witty turn of a word, he turned with assured solemnity and regained his seat. Upon that noble furniture, he prepared his face to radiate contempt that the defense attorney should make any effort to argue in defense of such an utter depravity as his client. The judge, for his part, was growing tired of the theater of the thing and starting to wonder about his dinner. He turned to the defense attorney and bade him commence his opening arguments.
By a quaint turn of tradition, legally, opening arguments cannot be anything like arguments. In the opening arguments, attorneys merely state for the court the issue at hand and their opinion of it. They are not allowed to let any facts squeak into this phase of the trial but must stick to generalities and emotional appeals. Appealing to the baser natures of juries works as well.
Our industrialist turned to his attorney, his overly stuffy clothing, donned to mimic the serious tableau of the court in supplication to its hoary traditions, his clothing hissed and grated about him in a most stuffy way. Never would the industrialist have got himself up in such a dowdy getup but his attorney had demanded it, fairly begging him to consider the defense attorney's career and his win/loss record, if nothing else, and his kids that needed those new things kids need to feel a part of their peer groups, those things they simply must have, the lack of which would be evidence of hate on the part of the parents, and, indeed, would cause the kids to no longer love their parents for the lack thereof, familial fealty be damned.
While he pondered these things, and watched his friend his defender arise and enter the lists of law to do battle without facts, to convince without evidence, to sway with the merest vapor of logic, he began, once again, to despair. His defender, his palladin of law, had informed him that the law remained rather pliable on the subject of monopolies in that no real measuring stick had been created to determine a monopoly when it was or wasn't one, but the fact of the monopoly, once established, changed the law with respects to his actions such that, once declared a monopoly, he could be tried publicly and metaphorically pilloried, attached to stocks or whatever, and subjected to the greatest public humiliation possible, a very true threat to such a one who had never sought the public eye. He could also lose a very large amount of money.
His palladin, having attained the center of the battle arena, having attained the right gravitas in his visage, that of concerned caring about a misfire of justice that he would soon correct by simply explaining to the jury and the public that this was nothing more than a simple misunderstanding, that his client could not be at all evil, look at him, and all this was conveyed without saying a single word, such was the skill of the defensive art.
The defensive master turned and greeted in turn each of the parties to this injustice, pausing to smile conspiratorially to the court reporter, then addressed the jury. So gushed his eloquence on the subject, already started in his visage, of the misunderstanding that soon would be set straight, so beatifically did he paint his picture of the industrialist, no mere defendant, but a man of towering stature allowing himself to be tried merely to set the record straight, so carefully did he avoid facts in his explanation that no objection was sustained, although he did humor the prosecutor every time one was raised, indeed, so beautiful was his rhetoric, that many in the jury made up there minds then and there to vote for innocence, although fickle are the jurists of the modern era, so such a resolution was not expected to last.
Having in broad strokes painted his tapestry of innocence, a tapestry that he used to cloak the industrialist, that he rode close to the error of making it necessary for such a tapestry to hide the man. Carefully and eloquently did he artfully avoid this error, indeed, weaving into the tapestry that covered the industrialist that such a tapestry could never hide the majesty of the man, could never even come close to obscuring his noble character, so carefully did he weave his tapestry that the irony of the thing was not perceived by anyone except the industrialist himself, who considered that if a thing should have to be said forcefully and eloquently, then it was likely false, which added to his funk as he began to worry that he was a little, small-minded man of no consequence.
Having worked many a defense, our defender had anticipated this, and the training stood the industrialist in good stead. None of his funk leaked into his countenance. His visage told a short, serious story of understanding of the gravity of the thing, with no smile to intimate any facileness in his demeanor that would suggest this trial was anything other than the utmost in seriousness, the utmost in importance, truly an event for the annals of history. Not having the ability of his defender, the story spread on his face was simple, straightforward and obvious. The subtlety of expression was not his to effect.
Our industrialist largely ignored his palladin, having heard the points of the opening arguments repeated in private by the attorney who would defend him vigorously on these prima facie baseless charges, and having heard the assertion of the baselessness of the charges so often he had lost the meaning of the words, to the point that they failed to reassure but rather reinforced his malaise at each repeating, even now, when snippets snuck through his fog of funk and struck his brain with barely noticeable blows the cumulative effect of which was to make him even more morose inside such that maintaining the story spread across his face became more of a chore.
It was thus with great relief that he heard his own attorney winding down this most assuredly important part of the first scene of the trial, something his attorney referred to as setting the tone for his argumentation. He began to pay attention again and thus was able to react with appropriate grim seriousness when his attorney turned the attention on him and, pointing at him, said something to the effect that he, that man, was innocent of nothing more than trying to improve the lot of mankind by making joyous things, who derived joy in the happiness of others, and whose employees provided great amounts of taxes, and, should the state consider removing some of his money, they should also consider the loss and grief such an act would cause those persons who, through no fault of their own, had their fortunes wrapped up in this man, who had never failed to bear up under the load of so many who depended on him.
This last caused such a pang of worry to pass through the industrialist that his story on his face changed, with the haggardness of bearing up under so much responsibility showing in a way that the defense attorney could not have coached, but which played with such pathos that many in the jury were nearly led to tears, while those who hated our industrialist were led to apoplexy about his play-acting concern in order to avoid righteous judgement for his evilness. Already the press, that great leviathon spreading itself all over the sensibilities of the country, had started to harrumph and harangue, to rant and rave, to issue considered opinions on the performance before them, to relate how it imported, and intimating how great it was for the rest of us to have all this explained by experts of towering knowledge on the subject.
Thus ended the first scene of the thing, with a bang of the gavel by a tired, bored judge, with a quiet exit of the jury, with a wan smile shared by the defender and his client, with a snide sneer shared by the party of the prosecution as they whispered amongst themselves that the thing had gone better than they expected. For, unsurprisingly, everyone was pleased with their performance so far.
By a quaint turn of tradition, legally, opening arguments cannot be anything like arguments. In the opening arguments, attorneys merely state for the court the issue at hand and their opinion of it. They are not allowed to let any facts squeak into this phase of the trial but must stick to generalities and emotional appeals. Appealing to the baser natures of juries works as well.
Our industrialist turned to his attorney, his overly stuffy clothing, donned to mimic the serious tableau of the court in supplication to its hoary traditions, his clothing hissed and grated about him in a most stuffy way. Never would the industrialist have got himself up in such a dowdy getup but his attorney had demanded it, fairly begging him to consider the defense attorney's career and his win/loss record, if nothing else, and his kids that needed those new things kids need to feel a part of their peer groups, those things they simply must have, the lack of which would be evidence of hate on the part of the parents, and, indeed, would cause the kids to no longer love their parents for the lack thereof, familial fealty be damned.
While he pondered these things, and watched his friend his defender arise and enter the lists of law to do battle without facts, to convince without evidence, to sway with the merest vapor of logic, he began, once again, to despair. His defender, his palladin of law, had informed him that the law remained rather pliable on the subject of monopolies in that no real measuring stick had been created to determine a monopoly when it was or wasn't one, but the fact of the monopoly, once established, changed the law with respects to his actions such that, once declared a monopoly, he could be tried publicly and metaphorically pilloried, attached to stocks or whatever, and subjected to the greatest public humiliation possible, a very true threat to such a one who had never sought the public eye. He could also lose a very large amount of money.
His palladin, having attained the center of the battle arena, having attained the right gravitas in his visage, that of concerned caring about a misfire of justice that he would soon correct by simply explaining to the jury and the public that this was nothing more than a simple misunderstanding, that his client could not be at all evil, look at him, and all this was conveyed without saying a single word, such was the skill of the defensive art.
The defensive master turned and greeted in turn each of the parties to this injustice, pausing to smile conspiratorially to the court reporter, then addressed the jury. So gushed his eloquence on the subject, already started in his visage, of the misunderstanding that soon would be set straight, so beatifically did he paint his picture of the industrialist, no mere defendant, but a man of towering stature allowing himself to be tried merely to set the record straight, so carefully did he avoid facts in his explanation that no objection was sustained, although he did humor the prosecutor every time one was raised, indeed, so beautiful was his rhetoric, that many in the jury made up there minds then and there to vote for innocence, although fickle are the jurists of the modern era, so such a resolution was not expected to last.
Having in broad strokes painted his tapestry of innocence, a tapestry that he used to cloak the industrialist, that he rode close to the error of making it necessary for such a tapestry to hide the man. Carefully and eloquently did he artfully avoid this error, indeed, weaving into the tapestry that covered the industrialist that such a tapestry could never hide the majesty of the man, could never even come close to obscuring his noble character, so carefully did he weave his tapestry that the irony of the thing was not perceived by anyone except the industrialist himself, who considered that if a thing should have to be said forcefully and eloquently, then it was likely false, which added to his funk as he began to worry that he was a little, small-minded man of no consequence.
Having worked many a defense, our defender had anticipated this, and the training stood the industrialist in good stead. None of his funk leaked into his countenance. His visage told a short, serious story of understanding of the gravity of the thing, with no smile to intimate any facileness in his demeanor that would suggest this trial was anything other than the utmost in seriousness, the utmost in importance, truly an event for the annals of history. Not having the ability of his defender, the story spread on his face was simple, straightforward and obvious. The subtlety of expression was not his to effect.
Our industrialist largely ignored his palladin, having heard the points of the opening arguments repeated in private by the attorney who would defend him vigorously on these prima facie baseless charges, and having heard the assertion of the baselessness of the charges so often he had lost the meaning of the words, to the point that they failed to reassure but rather reinforced his malaise at each repeating, even now, when snippets snuck through his fog of funk and struck his brain with barely noticeable blows the cumulative effect of which was to make him even more morose inside such that maintaining the story spread across his face became more of a chore.
It was thus with great relief that he heard his own attorney winding down this most assuredly important part of the first scene of the trial, something his attorney referred to as setting the tone for his argumentation. He began to pay attention again and thus was able to react with appropriate grim seriousness when his attorney turned the attention on him and, pointing at him, said something to the effect that he, that man, was innocent of nothing more than trying to improve the lot of mankind by making joyous things, who derived joy in the happiness of others, and whose employees provided great amounts of taxes, and, should the state consider removing some of his money, they should also consider the loss and grief such an act would cause those persons who, through no fault of their own, had their fortunes wrapped up in this man, who had never failed to bear up under the load of so many who depended on him.
This last caused such a pang of worry to pass through the industrialist that his story on his face changed, with the haggardness of bearing up under so much responsibility showing in a way that the defense attorney could not have coached, but which played with such pathos that many in the jury were nearly led to tears, while those who hated our industrialist were led to apoplexy about his play-acting concern in order to avoid righteous judgement for his evilness. Already the press, that great leviathon spreading itself all over the sensibilities of the country, had started to harrumph and harangue, to rant and rave, to issue considered opinions on the performance before them, to relate how it imported, and intimating how great it was for the rest of us to have all this explained by experts of towering knowledge on the subject.
Thus ended the first scene of the thing, with a bang of the gavel by a tired, bored judge, with a quiet exit of the jury, with a wan smile shared by the defender and his client, with a snide sneer shared by the party of the prosecution as they whispered amongst themselves that the thing had gone better than they expected. For, unsurprisingly, everyone was pleased with their performance so far.
