May 10, 2023
Pic: Prosecutor Thomas
Murphy
In this Podcast, I deliver, in my best courtroom voice, short
versions of Prosecutor Murphy’s down-to-earth opening statement for
the government and Lloyd Paul Stryker’s incandescent overture for
the Hiss defense. See which one you think is more impressive
— Murphy’s calm, rational promise of convincing evidence or
Stryker’s dazzling contrast of Saint Alger and the “moral leper”
Chambers.
FURTHER RESEARCH:
Episode 19: Strangely, neither Hiss nor Chambers in
his memoir spends many words on the opening statements of the two
great trial lawyers, Murphy and Stryker. Indeed, Hiss’s
description of the trials is all about the evidence, with nothing
about appearances, gestures, or his personal reactions. See
Hiss at 213.Chambers, equally remarkably, covers both trials in
only four pages at the back of his 799-page autobiography.
Witness at 789-92.He does refer to Stryker as ‘spinning and
flailing like a dervish” (791).
More detailed accounts of the opening statements are in
Weinstein at 437-41, Smith at 299-303, and Cooke at 109-18.
Cooke’s description (at 107-08) of Hiss’s physical appearance in
court on the first day is positively rhapsodic: “He had what
anyone must envy who has come to know that youth is a bloom that
sags and vanishes . . . . He had one of those bodies that
without being at all imposing or foppish seem to illustrate the
finesse of the human mechanism.. . . [H]e was of that species
which exists in the teeth of the American democratic theory and is
yet another proof of the superiority of matter over mind:an
American gentleman . . .” As I wrote about a previous
Podcast, Cooke just didn’t get Chambers at all. Given his
inclinations, it must have been a long ands painful journey for
Cooke to conclude, as he did, that Hiss was guilty. See Nick
Clarke, “Alistair Cooke:A Biography” (Arcade Publishing 1999) at
288.
Questions: If you were on the jury, which opening
statement would leave the better impression on you?
Certainly, Stryker was the superior orator. Would you want to
side with his client, Saint Alger? Would you feel pity or
hatred for Stryker’s Chambers: the professional liar,
mentally ill malcontent, and flouter of every standard of civilized
humanity? After the smoke and music of Stryker’s performance
had dissipated, however, would you be left wondering about the
evidence? That’s what Murphy talked about in his opening
statement: Chambers’ testimony that Hiss passed him
confidential State Department papers in 1937 and 1938 and the 100
or so such papers he would introduce into evidence. Stryker
didn’t say a word about the documents in Hiss’s handwriting and
typed on the Hiss family typewriter, which were created and in
Chambers’ possession long after Hiss said he had kicked Chambers
out of his life.