The Faces of Justice by Sybille Bedford

Author:Sybille Bedford [Sybille Bedford]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780571282692
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2011-08-05T16:00:00+00:00

I will try to run through another Karslruhe trial, something typical and brief, a case of, unadmitted, theft in one of the lower courts.

The solo judge in a black gown is alone on the dais except for a girl shorthand-writer who sits next to him. The public prosecutor is in his pulpit; the accused, also alone, on the front bench. He is a stocky fellow with thick hands. A family of witnesses chattering like starlings are in the witness-room across the passage.

The trial opens with the reading of a circumstantial form of charge. The defendant, whose name is Anton Schweig, is accused of stealing a sum of forty marks, or three pounds ten, in banknotes from a kitchen cupboard in a friend’s lodgings.

The judge then begins his examination of the accused, which is divided into two parts. The first is called zur Person, concerning the person, and deals extensively with the accused’s general circumstances, past and character. This is of course unheard of at an Anglo-Saxon trial where such facts—barring mishaps—are most carefully kept from the knowledge of those who will have to decide between innocence and guilt—magistrates, the jury—and are only disclosed at the end and after a conviction, unless indeed his past happens to be very much to the credit of the accused in which case it might be brought up by the defence and thereby become liable to cross-examination. But whenever the facts run like these, “He’s a single man, your Lordship, twenty six years of age, of no fixed employment, there are four previous convictions——”, they are heard only from the police officer in the box who steps up like Fortinbras after the cards are down. Here it is done first off and by the judge himself.

“You’re twenty-six? Oh, twenty-seven this month … Born in ’32 you were then? Hmhm. School? Seven years elementary, hmhm. Learn any trade? No … What did you do on leaving school?”

“I worked for the Americans.”

“You worked for the Americans … Parents alive?”

“Mother.”

“Yes, I see—your father was killed in Russia. You have two brothers, one sister, all married—you don’t live at home—work—what about work? You’re employed as a lorry driver now? What have you been earning?”

“Well,” says Schweig, “it depends …”

The judge flips a page. “Changing jobs pretty frequently … Laying off work … How is that?”

Shrug.

“What do you do when you don’t work?”

“Don’t know. Go about on my motor-bike.”

“Have you had any previous convictions?”

The young man puts his hands behind his back. Silence. “… well, yes.”

“How many?”

“Must I tell?”

“I’m afraid so. That’s a rule.”

There is no jury to hear it. Only, besides the judge and the shorthand girl, the prosecutor and a sprinkling of audience in the back of the court. There are no reporters; press attendance, unless the case has news value, is always meagre. The accused is not represented.

“One or two. But no prison. I’ve never been to prison.”

“It is quite true that you were never in prison,” says the judge, “you had two deferred prison sentences, and

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