Confused business dealings
may be described so that important sums, figures, and dates will be
remembered and recognized when they appear again in the evidence.
Counsel, for the time, occupies the center of the stage; his course is
in his hands to make or mar. He reaches the end of his speech, bows,
and the first witness is called.
Before the testimony begins the judge looks at the defendant's counsel
and asks him whether he wishes to state his defense. There is a
different practice in this regard in different courts. Some insist
that the defendant ought to tell at once what his side is about,
others that the defendant should wait until the plaintiff is through
all his evidence and has rested; then at the beginning of the
defendant's case the defendant's lawyer opens and makes his
introduction.
The difference between these two manners of proceeding is so essential
that it may be explained. On the one hand the lawyer feels that he
should not be compelled to give away what he is going to do, how he
proposes to meet the attack, whether he will lie in ambush and snipe
the plaintiff as he comes on or intrench behind a rampart and meet him
with the full force of his battery of evidence.
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