Section 3. (a) General Considerations.
Of the criminalist's tasks, the most important are those involving
his dealings with the other men who determine his work, with witnesses,
accused, jurymen, colleagues, etc. These are the most
pregnant of consequences. In every case his success depends on his
skill, his tact, his knowledge of human nature, his patience, and his
propriety of manner. Anybody who takes the trouble, may note
speedily the great differences in efficiency between those who do
and those who do not possess such qualities. That they are important
to witnesses and accused is undoubted. But this importance
is manifest to still others. The intercourse between various examining
judges and experts is a matter of daily observation. One judge
puts the question according to law and expects to be respected. He
does not make explicit how perfectly indifferent the whole affair is
to him, but experts have sufficient opportunity to take note of that
fact. The other narrates the case, explains to the experts its various
particular possibilities, finds out whether and what further elucidation
they demand, perhaps inquires into the intended manner and
method of the expert solution of the problem, informs himself of
the case by their means, and manifests especial interest in the difficult
and far too much neglected work of the experts. It may be
said that the latter will do their work in the one case as in the other,
with the same result. This would be true if, unfortunately, experts
were not also endowed with the same imperfections as other mortals,
and are thus far also infected by interest or indifference. Just
imagine that besides the examining magistrate of a great superior
court, every justice and, in addition, all the chiefs and officials
manifested equal indifference! Then even the most devoted experts
would grow cool and do only what they absolutely had to. But if
all the members of the same court are actuated by the same keen
interest and comport themselves as described, how different the
affair becomes! It would be impossible that even the indifferent,
and perhaps least industrious experts, should not be carried out of
themselves by the general interest, should not finally realize the
importance of their position, and do their utmost.
The same thing is true of the president, the jurymen and their
fellow-judges. It is observable that here and there a presiding justice
succeeds in boring all concerned during even criminal cases interesting
in themselves; the incident drags on, and people are interested only
in finally seeing the end of the matter. Other presiding justices
again, fortunately the majority, understand how to impart apparent
importance to even the simplest case. Whatever office anybody
may hold,—he and his mates are commissioned in the common
task, and should the thing come up for judgment, everybody does
his best. The difference here is not due to temperamental freshness
or tediousness; the result depends only upon a correct or incorrect
psychological handling of the participants. The latter must in
every single case be led and trained anew to interest, conscientiousness
and co-operation. In this need lies the educational opportunity
of the criminal judge. Whether it arises with regard to the
accused, the witness, the associate justice, or the expert, is all one;
it is invariably the same.
That knowledge of human nature is for this purpose most important
to the criminalist will be as little challenged as the circumstance
that such knowledge can not be acquired from books. Curiously
enough, there are not a few on the subject, but I suspect that
whoever studies or memorizes them, (such books as Pockel's,
Herz's, Meister's, Engel's, Jassoix's, and others, enumerated by
Volkmar) will have gained little that is of use. A knowledge of
human nature is acquired only (barring of course a certain talent
thereto) by persevering observation, comparison, summarization,
and further comparison. So acquired, it sets its possessor to the
fore, and makes him independent of a mass of information with
which the others have to repair their ignorance of mankind. This
is to be observed in countless cases in our profession. Whoever has
had to deal with certain sorts of swindlers, lying horsetraders,
antiquarians, prestidigitators, soon comes to the remarkable conclusion,
that of this class, exactly those who flourish most in their profession
and really get rich understand their trade the least. The horsedealer
is no connoisseur whatever in horses, the antiquarian can not
judge the value nor the age and excellence of antiquities, the cardsharp
knows a few stupid tricks with which, one might think, he
ought to be able to deceive only the most innocent persons. Nevertheless
they all have comfortable incomes, and merely because they
know their fellows and have practiced this knowledge with repeatedly
fresh applications.
I do not of course assert that we criminalists need little scholarly
knowledge of law, and ought to depend entirely upon knowledge of
men. We need exactly as much more knowledge as our task exceeds
that of the horse-dealer, but we can not do without knowledge of
humanity. The immense onerousness of the judge's office lies in
just the fact that he needs so very much more than his bare legal
knowledge. He must, before all things, be a jurist and not merely a
criminalist; he must be in full possession not only of the knowledge
he has acquired in his academy, but of the very latest up-to-date
status of his entire science. If he neglects the purely theoretical,
he degenerates into a mere laborer. He is in duty bound not only
to make himself familiar with hundreds of things, to be able to
consort with all sorts of crafts and trades, but also, finally, to form
so much out of the material supplied him by the law as is possible
to human power.
