Clement Vallandigham accidentally shot himself demonstrating how one might accidentally shoot oneself. The Ohio lawyer was representing a defendant accused of killing a man in a barroom brawl. Vallandigham wanted to show that the victim might have shot himself while trying to draw his pistol from a kneeling position.
“I’ll show you how Tom Myers shot himself,” he said to his fellow defense attorneys in discussing the case. He put a gun into his pocket and began to draw it. “There, that’s the way Myers held it,” he said, “only he was getting up, not standing erect.” And he touched the trigger.
“A sudden flash — the half suppressed sound of a shot — and Clement L. Vallandigham, with an expression of agony, exclaimed: ‘My God, I’ve shot myself!’ and reeled toward the wall a wounded and dying man — wounded and dying by his own hands.”
He died of the peritonitis, but he’d proved his point — the defendant was acquitted.
Molt bona la història!
ResponderEliminarPotser no tant per al protagonista...
EliminarSí, señor, eso es comprometerse con la causa del cliente. Si alguna vez necesito un abogado, que sea tan entregado como lo era el señor Vallandighan; pero también, a ser posible, menos torpe.
ResponderEliminarEn Futility Closet encontré también esta cita, de Calvin Coolidge a Hervert Hoover, su malhadado sucesor en el cargo:
“Mr. Hoover, if you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you and you have to battle with only one of them.”
Muy propio de Coolidge.