There was indeed a feeling that the judge was a man who tended to Wilk’s way of thought; all through the trial, Horn had made no effort to conceal that he saw the judge as a man like Wilk. And he seemed to be attacking the judge himself as he again shouted, “The real defence in this case is Jonathan Wilk’s dangerous philosophy of life!
“Society can endure, the law can endure, and criminals may escape, but if a court such as this court should say that he believes in the doctrine of Jonathan Wilk, that you ought not to hang when the law says you should, a greater blow has been struck to our institutions than by a hundred, aye, a thousand murders!”
The judge still eyed him with that curious, measuring look. And Horn, with a guttural growl of frustration and despair, flung in a last taunt, one that he had perhaps meant to hold back: “Mr. Wilk has preached in this case that one of the handicaps the defendants are under is that they are the sons of multimillionaires. I would not bring it up if Mr. Wilk had not brought it up. But he tried to make Your Honour believe that Sergeant McNamara lied about Judd Steiner’s statement that his father’s millions could find a friendly judge.”
There was that peculiar atmosphere in the room, foretelling that something ineradicable was on the way, something that Horn could no longer stop himself from doing.
Horn faced the judge, eye to eye. “Did Sergeant McNamara lie?” he demanded. “I don’t know whether Your Honour believes this officer of the law or not, but I want to tell you, if you have observed these two defendants sitting before you during this trial, if you have observed the conduct of their attorneys and their families with one honourable exception – and that is the old man who sits in sackcloth and ashes and who is entitled to the sympathy of everybody, old Mr. Steiner – with that one honourable exception, everybody connected with this case” – he drew breath and shrieked, his arms chopping the air – “they all have laughed and sneered and jeered! And if the defendant, Steiner, did not say that he would plead guilty before a friendly judge, why, his actions demonstrated that he thinks he has got one!”
The words hung in the hot, static air.
Judge Matthewson arose, stared at him, then sat down. “I will disregard what you have said.”
The shock of Horn’s running beyond the point of recall had been so great that those at the defence table did not even seem to enjoy their gain.
Horn finished hurriedly. “I believe that the facts and circumstances proven in this case demonstrate that a crime has been committed by these two defendants and that no other punishment except the extreme penalty of the law will fit, and I leave the case with you on behalf of the state of Illinois, and I ask Your Honour in the language of Holy Writ to ‘execute justice and righteousness in the land’.”
Judge Matthewson seemed not to have heard Horn’s final words, engaged as he had been in an effort of self-control.
“Before the State rests,” he said, “the court will order stricken from the record the closing remark of the State’s Attorney as being a cowardly and dastardly assault upon the integrity of this court.”
Horn’s voice was half-choked with chagrin, rage, defeat. “It was not so intended, Your Honour.”
The judge disregarded him. “It could not be used for any other purpose except to incite a mob and to try and intimidate this court.”
“If Your Honour please, the state’s attorney had no such intention.”
The entire courtroom was electric, the boys sitting up with a frightened hope, a realization that something entirely extraneous was happening, perhaps a break that would save their lives.
“I merely wanted to put my personal feelings plainly before the court,” Horn insisted. “It was my intention as the State’s Attorney-”
“The State’s Attorney knew that his words would be heralded all through this country and all over this world.”
“It was not my intention.”
“This court will not be intimidated by anybody at any time or place as long as he occupies this position.” The judge sat back.
After a moment he announced, “I am going to take this case under advisement, gentlemen. I have practically two thousand pages of exhibits. It will take some time to prepare to decide this matter and to render judgment in this case. I think I ought to have ten days or so, and I will fix the day as September ten.” He arose. “We will adjourn this case now until September the tenth at nine-thirty o’clock.”
During those ten days the intense and fantastic absorption with the case increased rather than abated. We were beset with rumours; there were threats to bomb the judge’s home, to kill him should he fail to hang the criminals.
Nor was Judd silent. If the sentence were death, the execution, according to the Illinois law, could take place in a few months’ time. His mind seemed to be churning at greater speed, to produce some proof of the importance of his life.
He released, now, the list of questions he would attempt to solve from the other side of death, should there prove to be an after-life. These were his questions:
Is human experience carried on in any form of consciousness after death?
Is there complete omniscience?
Are the cultural experiences of the earth necessary? What of the savage mind?
Is the absence of a physical being an advantage?
Does one retain reactions registered on the mind previous to death?
Is life on earth correct in judgment, or is there a higher judgment?
What is happiness?
ON THE MORNING of the sentencing, mounted police circled the building. The crowd was immense. Precisely at nine-thirty all were in their places in the courtroom, and Judge Matthewson appeared. Among us of the press, Prager and his friends were loud with dire predictions. That was a real mob out there. If the verdict proved short of death the boys would never get out of the building alive.
I could not feel it as a lynch mob, though I was not without uneasiness. Since then, I see it more like a crowd waiting for the outcome of a desperately fought election. In it there was a feverish having-to-know. I’ve talked about it with wiser and more learned men than myself, and I realize that it was not so much the act of decision that was awaited, not so much the who-wins, but the disposition, in terms of our own selves. In each there must have been identification; in each, the hidden sense that the disposition would symbolically apply to his own darkest impulse. If I let myself do something even as awful as this, how much would I be punished? Would I die for it?
We all rose for the entry of the judge. After the swift formalities, the boys stood before him, between Wilk and Ferdinand Feldscher, and as the judge met their eyes it was still impossible to know whether he brought them death or life. Artie was utterly pale, his cheeks twitched. Judd was impassive.
Judge Matthewson read:
“In view of the profound and unusual interest that this case has aroused not only in this community but in the entire country and even beyond its boundaries, the court feels it is his duty to state the reasons which have led him to the determination he has reached.
“It is not an uncommon thing that pleas of guilty are entered in criminal cases, but almost without exception in the past such pleas have been the result of a virtual agreement between the defendants and the State’s Attorney; and in the absence of special reasons to the contrary, it is the practice of the court to follow the recommendations of the State’s Attorney.
“In the present case the situation is a different one. A plea of guilty has been entered by the defence without a previous understanding with the prosecution, and without any advance knowledge whatever on his part.” Moreover, the judge pointed out, the plea of guilty in this case did not make the task of the prosecution easier “by substituting the admission of guilt for a possibly difficult or uncertain chain of proof”. For in this case the State already had ample proof of guilt, besides full confessions.