Following Tuesday’s adjournment, the members of the jury, at Goff’s orders, were taken to the Astor House, where they were put up in handsomely appointed rooms and “provided with every comfort and convenience.” It was the first time that they had been sequestered. Goff made his decision after the newspapers printed stories that one of the men, while dining with “business associates,” remarked that “he would not hang a yellow dog on the evidence that has been presented.”
As the jurors had never been separated from their families in the three months since the start of the trial, the court did its best to accommodate their relatives the following morning. When Wednesday’s session began, “a large part of the crowd that was packed into the courtroom” consisted of the wives, children, and elderly parents of the twelve jurors.1
Those seated in the rear had to strain to hear Roland’s attorney when he resumed his summation at approximately 10:30 A.M. Even after a night’s rest, Weeks had not recovered the full use of his voice. Still, apart from a ninety-minute lunch recess, he managed to speak continuously until nearly five in the afternoon.
He picked up where he had left off the previous day, with a savage denunciation of the letter box men. He then proceeded to cast doubt on the testimony of Mamie Melando and to deride the entire field of handwriting analysis by invoking the Dreyfus affair—a case in which “a man spent five years on Devil’s Island because the handwriting experts were mistaken.”
Moving on to the issue of motive, he sneered at the notion that any man would commit murder for the reasons alleged by the prosecution—petty disputes over gym equipment and a nasty letter written on official club stationery. “Would the defendant imperil his life, ruin his family, drag them to dishonor and disgrace for such a trifling motive as that?”
His harshest attacks, however, were reserved for his opponent. He reminded the jurors that Osborne, during his opening speech, had promised to expose the defendant as a kind of “Frankenstein monster”—a “man sicklied o’er with the pale cast of sexual perversion.” “But has the district attorney done so?” demanded Weeks. “No! He has not introduced a syllable of evidence in support of this cruel assertion.”
But Osborne had acted in an even more deplorable manner, Weeks charged. Not content with vilifying the defendant as a moral degenerate, he had stooped to defaming Roland’s wife.
“That old father and mother you see there lost a son when he was carried off to the Tombs,” said Weeks, gesturing toward the table where Roland sat between Blanche and his parents. “All through the eleven months of his imprisonment, while their boy has been away from them, their daughter-in-law has been with them as a comfort and a solace. Was the burden of the father and mother not already heavy enough when their dear son was imprisoned? No!” cried Weeks, his voice quaking with indignation. “The district attorney was not satisfied with the effort to deprive the defendant of his life. He also sought to deprive the defendant’s wife of her honor!”
Turning toward the prosecution table, Weeks proceeded (as one reporter put it) to “verbally flay” the prosecutor for calling the two “colored servant girls” to testify that “Barnet had supplanted the defendant” in Blanche’s affection.
“Why did you do it?” he demanded, stabbing a finger in Osborne’s direction. “You knew the foul and scandalous accusation had nothing to do with the case. It was unnecessary. It was unworthy. It was untrue!”
“Then why didn’t you deny it?” sneered Osborne.
“Why should I have to deny such infamous lies?” Weeks exploded. “What business did you have introducing it? You knew you couldn’t connect it to the death of Mrs. Adams—yet you brought it in anyway. How dare you produce it?”
Weeks took a moment to regain his composure. Then, after offering one final dig at the state’s handwriting experts, who had failed to show any “forcible similarity” between Roland’s penmanship and the “poison package address,” he launched into his peroration.
“My task is done,” he began. “The decision of the case and the fate of the prisoner is in your hands,” he solemnly intoned. “You are to consign him to a disgraceful death or you are to restore him to his family and freedom. I ask you to consider carefully, conscientiously, and mercifully before you bring in a verdict of guilty, a verdict which is to cut asunder the ties of this married life, a verdict that will bring disgrace and dishonor to his family.”
He praised their acumen, expressing his confidence that, after considering the great mass of evidence that had been presented to them, they would “sift the chaff from the wheat” and arrive at the only reasonable verdict—“a verdict that will restore this young man to his family, restore his good name, and set him free after his long period of imprisonment.”
He urged them to listen to their conscience, and if they found themselves wavering, to “err on humanity’s side.” “The wrong you do can never be restored,” he cautioned. “Gentlemen, in a case of doubt, when the scales are oscillating, let them turn in the favor of the prisoner. It is a terrible thing to destroy the temple of an immortal soul.”
In graphic terms, he reminded the jurors of the awful responsibility that had been imposed upon them. “I know the district attorney will tell you that it will not be you who will take this man’s life if you find him guilty. That it will not be you who will touch the button that sends the electric shock through his body, burning his nerves and disfiguring him. But it will be you. It will be you, gentlemen, who will have to say whether he lives or dies. You will have to say whether or not the evidence has convinced you beyond a reasonable doubt that he is guilty.”
By then, Weeks’s voice had almost given out. After a few final flattering remarks about their common sense and conscience, he declared his absolute confidence in their verdict. “We ask no maudlin sympathy,” he said. “We ask no favor. We ask only as a man to his fellow man—‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ In doing that, we are sure of your verdict.”2
Throughout Weeks’s final appeal, reporters kept their eyes on Roland and his family, attempting to gauge their reactions. At no point did Roland display the slightest emotion. He maintained the indifferent demeanor he always wore when he wasn’t smirking or looking bored. His parents, too, sat there stonily, though stress and anxiety were etched on their faces.
Blanche alone put on a show. When Weeks described the horrors of the electric chair, she let out a cry of distress, buried her face in her hands, and broke into loud sobs. At least one observer found her outburst somewhat “ostentatiously done”—marked by a certain degree of “theatrical exaggeration.”3 But apart from this cold-eyed critic, Blanche’s impersonation of a caring wife fooled everyone.