What should I do," he defends himself, uneasily disclaiming responsibility for what might be a wrongful conviction, "lie? I had to tell them what I saw . . . The odds are a million to one that that boy is guilty."
I'm wondering if this was a bit of a noir theme -- 1934's Midnight (pre-Noir, I guess), begins with a jury member who is considered by the public to be solely responsible for a murder conviction, because during the trial, he'd asked why, if the shooting had been accidental, the defendant had taken all the victim's money.
The convicted killer is a woman, and apparently retained a lot of public sympathy, because on the eve of her execution he's being hounded by reporters asking him if he feels any responsibility for her impending death (no one seems to place any blame on the rest of the jury or on the judge who passed sentence). Then his daughter shoots her boyfriend in self-defense, and we go into the type of spiralling horror (and last-minute happy ending) you describe; a somewhat suspect happy ending in this case, as a sympathetic cop/DA (can't recall which) believes the daughter's story and makes sure the case never comes to trial; so the moral of the story appears to be "don't ask questions; just trust the authorities to bend the rules in the right direction."
no subject
I'm wondering if this was a bit of a noir theme -- 1934's Midnight (pre-Noir, I guess), begins with a jury member who is considered by the public to be solely responsible for a murder conviction, because during the trial, he'd asked why, if the shooting had been accidental, the defendant had taken all the victim's money.
The convicted killer is a woman, and apparently retained a lot of public sympathy, because on the eve of her execution he's being hounded by reporters asking him if he feels any responsibility for her impending death (no one seems to place any blame on the rest of the jury or on the judge who passed sentence). Then his daughter shoots her boyfriend in self-defense, and we go into the type of spiralling horror (and last-minute happy ending) you describe; a somewhat suspect happy ending in this case, as a sympathetic cop/DA (can't recall which) believes the daughter's story and makes sure the case never comes to trial; so the moral of the story appears to be "don't ask questions; just trust the authorities to bend the rules in the right direction."