Native Son - Richard Wright [166]
“I do!” Max said. “I hesitate to interrupt the State’s Attorney, but the impression he is trying to make is that I claim that this boy is insane. That is not true. Your Honor, let me state once again that this poor boy, Bigger, enters a plea of guilty….”
“I object!” Buckley shouted. “I object to the counsel for the defendant speaking of this defendant before this Court by any name other than that written in the indictment. Such names as ‘Bigger’ and ‘this poor boy’ are used to arouse sympathy….”
“Sustained,” the judge said. “In the future, the defendant should be designated by the name under which the indictment was drawn. Mr. Max, I think you should allow the State’s Attorney to continue.”
“There’s nothing further I have to say, Your Honor,” Buckley said. “If it pleases the Court, I am ready to call my witnesses.”
“How many witnesses have you?” Max asked.
“Sixty,” Buckley said.
“Your Honor,” Max said. “Bigger Thomas has entered a plea of guilty. It seems to me that sixty witnesses are not needed.”
“I intend to prove that this defendant is sane, that he was and is responsible for these frightful crimes,” Buckley said.
“The Court will hear them,” the judge said.
“Your Honor,” Max said. “Let me clear this thing up. As you know, the time granted me to prepare a defense for Bigger Thomas is pitifully brief, so brief as to be without example. This hearing was rushed to the top of the calendar so that this boy might be tried while the temper of the people is white-hot.
“A change of venue is of no value now. The same condition of hysteria exists all over this state. These circumstances have placed me in a position of not doing what I think wisest, but of doing what I must. If anybody but a Negro boy were charged with murder, the State’s Attorney would not have rushed this case to trial and demanded the death penalty.
“The State has sought to create the impression that I am going to say that this boy is insane. That is not true. I shall put no witnesses upon the stand. I shall witness for Bigger Thomas. I shall present argument to show that his extreme youth, his mental and emotional life, and the reason why he has pleaded guilty, should and must mitigate his punishment.
“The State’s Attorney has sought to create the belief that I’m trying to spring some surprise upon this Court by having my client enter a plea of guilty; he has sought to foster the notion that some legal trick is involved in the offering of evidence to mitigate this boy’s punishment. But we have had many, many such cases to come before the courts of Illinois. The Loeb and Leopold case, for example. This is a regular procedure provided for by the enlightened and progressive laws of our state. Shall we deny this boy, because he is poor and black, the same protection, the same chance to be heard and understood that we have so readily granted to others?
“Your Honor, I am not a coward, but I could not ask that this boy be freed and given a chance at life while that mob howls beyond that window. I ask what I must. I ask, over the shrill cries of the mob, that you spare his life!
“The law of Illinois, regarding a plea of guilty to murder before a court, is as follows: the Court may impose the death penalty, imprison the defendant for life, or for a term of not less than fourteen years. Under this law the Court is able to hear evidence as to the aggravation or mitigation of the offense. The object of this law is to caution the Court to seek to find out why a man killed and to allow that why to be the measure of the mitigation of the punishment.
“I noticed that the State’s Attorney did not dwell upon why Bigger Thomas killed those two women. There is a mob waiting, he says, so let us kill. His only plea is that if we do not kill, then the mob will kill.
“He did not discuss the motive for Bigger Thomas’ crime because he could not. It is to his advantage to act quickly, before men have had time to think, before the full facts are known. For he knows that if the full facts were known, if men had time to reflect, he could not stand there and shout for death!