Conditions similar to confessional circumstances arise when other types of persuasive evidence are gathered, which have the same impressive influence as confessions. In such cases the judge’s task is easier than the witness’s, since he need not tell them of evidence already at hand. How very much people allow themselves to be influenced by antecedent grounds of suspicion is a matter of daily observation. One example will suffice. An intelligent man was attacked at night and wounded. On the basis of his description an individual was arrested. On the next day the suspect was brought before the man for identification. He identified the man with certainty, but inasmuch as his description did not quite hit off the suspect he was asked the reason for his certainty. “Oh, you certainly would not have brought him here if he were not the right man,” was the astonishing reply. Simply because the suspect was arrested on the story of the wounded man and brought before him in prison garb, the latter thought he saw such corroboration for his data as to make the identification certain--a pure ὑστερον πρωτερον, which did not at all occur to him in connection with the vivid impression of what he saw. I believe that to keep going with merely what the criminalist knows about the matter, belongs to his most difficult tasks.
Anybody who means to work honestly must strive to awaken and to sustain the interest of his collaborators. A judge’s duty is to present his associates material, well-arranged, systematic, and exhaustive, but not redundant; and to be himself well and minutely informed concerning the case. Whoever so proceeds may be certain in even the most ordinary and simplest cases, of the interest of his colleagues,--hence of their attention; and, in consequence, of the best in their power. These are essentially self-evident propositions. In certain situations, however, more is asked with regard to the experts. The expert, whether a very modest workman or very renowned scholar, must in the first instance become convinced of the judge’s complete interest in his work; of the judge’s power to value the effort and knowledge it requires; of the fact that he does not question and listen merely because the law requires it, and finally of the fact that the judge is endowed, so far as may be, with a definite comprehension of the expert’s task.