COMPULSION

Orson Welles, 1959

Prosecution: There is no other justice, no other verdict, There is no other penalty, has such a vile, cold, brutal, inexcusable, premeditated murder been committed. Gentlemen of the jury, my office, representing the outraged citizens of Cook County, dedicates itself to presenting the evidence in this case in such a manner that the perpetrators of this crime shall be convicted and hanged as swiftly as possible.

(Yelling in courtroom.)

Judge: Any further disturbance of this nature and I shall order the bailiffs to clear the court. Defense will make its opening remarks to the Jury.

Defense: Your Honor, if you please, Defense will waive its remarks to the Jury. If the Court will approve the intent at this time, to change the plea to Guilty.

P: What?

D: We're changing the plea to guilty with mitigating circumstances.

Assistant Prosecutor: Don't worry. I'll have that Jury back if the mitigating circumstances even sound like insanity.

Judge: State's attorney will approach the Bench, please. The Court accepts your change of plea to Guilty for the Defense, Mr. Wilke. Before I dismiss the Jury, may I see both of you gentlemen in chambers? There'll be a short recess.

……..

Prosecution: I object, I object, your Honor, I object. I've said it ten times and I say it again. The moment you admit evidence on insanity, this becomes a mock trial.

Defense: Now, so far nobody's mentioned insanity except you. Your Honor, all the Defense is asking is the chance to present expert testimony on the mental condition of these two boys

P: As a mitigating circumstance--

D: Your honor--

P: It's just another word for insanity,

D: Your Honor--

P: And that evidence has to be presented to a jury!

(yelling and overlapping)

Defense: --Without hearing a single word, from Dr. Allworth, has already arrived at a conclusion which the testimony of the witness may not support.

Prosecution: Defense Counsel is making a mockery of procedure, I object to his--

Judge: Objection overruled. You may take the stand, Dr. Allworth.

……..

Defense: Thank you, Doctor, now, can you tell us how far this tendency to what you call schizophrenia, progressed with Artie Strauss?

Doctor: Not to any degree of exactitude. We do know the habit of lying, indulging in fantasies, which the boy developed in infancy, had progressed to the stage where he himself was having difficulty distinguishing between what was true and what was not true.

Prosecution: Your Honor, the Prosecution moves a jury be impaneled.

D: But why?

P: If Artie Strauss cannot distinguish between what is true and what is not true

D: Your honor--

P: He cannot distinguish between right and wrong, and is therefore insane, isn't that what you're saying?

Doctor: No, I don't believe so.

D: Now just a minute.

P: You're an expert and under oath--

D: I am cross-examining this witness.

Doctor: Under oath I cannot answer that. Insanity is a legal term, not a medical one. I am a doctor, not a lawyer.

Judge: Motion denied.

Defense: Your witness, Mr. Horn.

Prosecution: Poppycock, doctor. More psychiatric verbiage. Call it paranoia, call it anything you like. What it all added up to in Judd Steiner was a feeling that nobody liked him. And they had good reason not to.

Doctor: Paranoia encompasses a very positive feeling of being right, and a strong neurotic suspicion of being persecuted because of those feelings.

Prosecution: Oh it does, eh? Well, let me tell you something, for the past ten days, in cross-examining you and your colleagues, I've had exactly those feelings. I know I'm right, and I have a distinct feeling of being persecuted by the Defense. Do you think I should be committed?

Defense: Your Honor, I submit, that if the subject to be debated here is Mr. Horn's sanity, for once I agree with him. Only a jury could determine that.

……..

Defense: Now, at the time of this meeting, you had a deep romantic attachment for another boy?

Girl: Yes sir.

Q: And yet you also feel romantic attachment for Judd?

A: I felt he was alone and terribly unhappy.

Q: I see. Now, did Judd give any demonstration that he liked you as a woman?

A: He kissed me.

Q: That's all. No further advances?

A: There were, but they stopped.

Q: Would you keep your voice up, Miss Evans? I couldn't hear you.

A: (louder) But they stopped.

Q: I'm sorry, Miss Evans, but were they of such a nature as to make you determine never to see him again?

A: No, they were not.

Q: You would have seen him again?

A: Yes.

Q: Within a few hours after Judd was arrested, did your feelings toward him change then?

A: Of course. I realized that the unhappiness I sensed had caused him to commit a violent, insane crime.

Q: And with this knowledge, would you still see him again?

A: Yes. I felt sorry for him then, and I feel sorry for him now.

Q: No further questions.

……..

Defense: This crime is the most fiendish, cold-blooded, inexcusable case the world has ever known. That's what Mr. Horn has told this court. Your Honor, I've been practicing law a good deal longer than I ought to have, defending now for 45, 46 years, during all that time, I've never tried a case where the State's Attorney did not say that it was the most cold-blooded inexcusable case ever. Certainly there was no excuse for the killing of little Pauly Kessler. There was also no reason for it. It wasn't for spite, or for hate, or for money. The great misfortune of this case is money. If your Honor should doom these boys to die, it'll be because their parents are rich. I don't need to mention that I'd fight as hard for the poor as for the rich.

If I'd come into this court alone, with two ordinary, obscure defendants who'd done what these boys have done, there hadn't been all this weirdness and notoriety, this sensational publicity, and I said, "Your Honor I want to gather a plea of guilty and let you sentence them to life imprisonment," do you suppose the State's Attorneys would raise their voices in protest? There's never been a case in Chicago where on a plea of guilty a boy under 21 has been sentenced to death--not one.

Yet for some reason, in the case of these immature boys of diseased minds, as plain as day, they say you can only get justice by shedding their last drop of blood. Isn't a lifetime behind prison bars enough for this mad act? And must this great public be regaled with a hanging? For the last three weeks, I've heard nothing but the cry of blood in this room. Heard nothing from the offices of the State's Attorneys but ugly hatred.

For God's sake, are we crazy? If you hang these boys, it will mean that in this land of ours, the court of law could not help but bow down to public opinion. In as cruel a speech as he knew how to make, the State's Attorneys told this Court that we're pleading guilty because we're afraid to do anything else. Your Honor, that's true. So of course, I'm afraid to submit this case to a jury, where the responsibility must be divided by twelve. No, your Honor, if these boys must hang, you must do it. It must be your own deliberate, cool, premeditated act. The State's Attorneys laughed at me for talking about childrnes' fantasies, but what does he know about childhood? What do I know? Is there anyone who hasn't been guilty of some sort of delinquency in his youth? How many men are there herre today, lawyers and congressmen, judges, and even States' Attorneys, who haven't been guilty of some wild act in youth, and if the consequences didn't amount to much, and we didn't get caught, that was our good luck.

But this was something different. This was the mad act of two sick children who belong in a psychopathic hospital. Do I need to argue it? Is there any man with a decent regard for human life, and the slightest bit of heart, that doesn't understand it? We're told it was a cold-blooded killing, because, they planned and schemed. Yes, but for months, to hear the officers of the State, who for months have planned and schemed and contrived to take these boys' lives. Talk about scheming. Your Honor, I've become obsessed with this deep feeling of hate and anger. I've been fighting it, battling with it until it has fairly driven me mad. What about this matter of crime and punishment, anyway? Through the centuries, our laws have been modified, until now men look back in horror at the hangings and killings of the past. It's been proven, that if the penalties are less barbarous, the crimes are less frequent. Do I need to argue with your Honor that cruelty only breeds cruelty?

That every religious leader who's held up as an example has taught us, that if there's any way to kill evil, it's not by killing men, and if there's any way of destroying hatred, and all that goes with it, it's not through evil and hatred and cruelty. It's through charity, love, understanding. This is a Christian community. So-called. Is there any doubt that these boys would be safe in the hands of the founder of the Christian religion?

I think anyone who knows me, knows how sorry I am for little Pauly Kessler, knows I'm not just saying it to talk. Artie and Judd enticed him into the car and when he struggled, they hit him over the head and killed him. They did that. They poured acid over him to destroy his identity and put the naked body in a ditch. And if killing these boys would bring him back to life, I'd say let them go. And I think their parents would say so, too.

Neither they nor I would want them released. They must be isolated from society. I'm asking this court to shut them into a prison for life. Any cry for more goes back to the hyena, back to the beasts of the jungle. There's no part of man. This court is told to give them the same mercy that they gave their victim. Your Honor, if our state is not kinder, more human, more considerate, more intelligent than the mad act of these two sick boys, then I'm sorry that I've lived so long. I know that any mother might be the mother of little Pauly Kessler, who left home and went to school and never came back. But I know that any mother might be the mother of Artie Strauss, Judd Steiner. Maybe in some ways these parents are more responsible than their children. I guess the truth is that all parents could be criticized. And these might have done better, if they hadn't had as much money. I do not know. The State's Attorney has pictured the putting of the poor little dead body in the ditch. But your Honor, I can only think now of taking these two boys, 18 and 19, penning them in a cell, checking off the days and hours and minutes, until they're wakened in the grey of the morning and led to the scaffold, their feet tied, black caps drawn over their heads, stood on a trap, the hangman pressing a spring. I can see them fall through space, I can see them stopped by the rope around their necks. It would be done, of course, in the name of justice. Justice, who knows what it is? Do I know? Does your Honor know? Can your Honor tell me what I deserve? Can your Honor appraise your self and say what you deserve, do you think you can cure the hatreds and maladjustments of the world by hanging them? Mr. Horn says that if we hang aRtie and Judd, there'll be no more killing. The world has been one long slaughterhouse from the beginning until today, and the killing goes on and on and on. Why not read something, why not think, instead of blindly shouting for death. Kill them because everybody's talking about the case? Because their parents have money? Kill them? Will that stop other sick boys from killing? No. It's taken the world a long, long time to get to even where it is today. Your Honor, if you hang these boys, you turn back to the past. I'm pleading for the future. Not merely for these boys, but for all boys, for all the young, I'm pleading, not for these two lives, but for life itself, for a time when we can learn to overcome hatred with love, when we can learn that all life is worth saving, and that mercy is the highest attribute of men. Yes I'm pleading for the future. In this court of law, I'm pleading for love.

Judge: Court stands in recess until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning.

END