South Bend News-Times, Volume 33, Number 69, South Bend, St. Joseph County, 9 March 1916 — Page 14

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Tiirnsi;.v i:vrxic;. march 9. 101. THE SOUTH BEND NEWS-TIMEb I

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This diagram shows how a keyhole witness might readily mistake a suicide for a murder and on the testimony of the keyhole observer, be accused of the crime. The true

Scientific Experiments Show Why Judge Cohalan Was Right in Upsetting the Verdict of the Jury Which

A Agreed That Dr. StiefeVs

What AJURT In the NVw Vork Supreme Court recently listened to a maid testify on thp witness stand what she saw while peeping through a keyhole. Solely upon the strength of the girl's testimony the Jury decided that Mrs. Adele Lewis Stiefel waw entitled to an absolute divorce from Dr. IJenjamin V. Stiefel, although the doctor and the patient who was In the room with him while the maid was spying through the keyhole both testified that the witness was entirely mistaken. Just what it was that the maid thought she saw and, therefore, swore she saw, and which the jury believed she really did joethis Is not material to the interesting facts which will be discussed here. Dr. Stiefel and his woman patient had an explanation of what the maid thought was going on the jury believed the maid. J Justico Cohalan, who tried the case, promptly set the Jury's verdict aside. The keyhole evidence, upon whi.h the whole case again&4 the doctor was founded, was not, he decided, to be relied upon While the Judge did not discuss In detail the weakness of keyhole evidence In general, the courts are evidently beginning to look upon euch evidence with suspicion. A few years ago Professor Huo Munsterberg, the famous Harvard psychologist wrote a book, entitled "On the Witness Stand." in which he condemned the methods of law courts be-cause, he contended, neither lawyers, Judges nor juries pay sufficient attention to psychology In weighing the value of testimony. -The Judge listens, perhaps," he declared, "to & description of things which the witness has secretly seen through the keyhole of the door; he does not understand why all the Judgments as to the size of objects and their place are probably erroneous under such circumstances." Human Testimony Not Infallible From Judge Cohalan's action in the Stiefel case, it would seem that at least one Jurist way mindful of the fallibility of human testimony under special circumstances., and in a similar case recently in which a divon-e was granted upon the testimony of a witness who testified what she saw -.hroueh a stovepipe hole in a ceiling, the Appellate Court decided that the witness could not possibly have seen what fhe testified to. and reversed the judgment. Tlw fart is that the average individual has but a very inaccv idea of what can he seen throv keyhol'. An untruthful witna. testifying as to vhat was observed under such circumstances, is very apt, therefore, to Include rnan things which must have been quite out of the range of vision. Go to a keyhole now, kneel down, and observe how limited is the field of vision. But the raost interesting thing about keyhole testimony Is the fact that even a truthful witness is very apt to be mistaken av to what oc

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She Thought She Saw

curs or exists in the room. It Is a fact, which has been repeatedly demonstrated by psychological exeriments, that even when our rislon is quite unrestricted we fail to observe many things which we imagine we actually see. We see them in our "mind'y eye," but not actually. Even when we look directly at an object, we seldom see all of it, although we would probably be willing to go on the stand and swear that we saw every part of it. The fact, however, is thai we see only part of the object and imagine the rest. As you read these lines, for instance, your eye actually observe only part of each letter and "jumps to a conclusion" aw to what the rest of it is. That is why, In reading hastily, we find it necessary sometimes to retrace our steps, so to spak. The context tells us that we must have read inaccurately. Such mi.slakes are due to partial observation. We saw but part of a wen'., guessed the rest and guessed it wrong. Guesswork Supplies Missing Details. This universal habit of partial observation Is one of tha things which make keyhole testimony so unreliable. Because of the restricted vi.vion which the keyhole affords, the observer, quite unconsciously, is led to guess what he doesn't see. Looking through the keyhole he observes but a very small part of the scene In the room. By shifting his eye to and fro a little, his range of vision may be somewhat Increased, but still thf re are large areas In the room which remain quite ;nvisible to him. These things have all been made clear by an engineer who recently had occasion to Investigate this very question. The room which he measured was some seventeen feet deep. The keyhole in the door was of averace size, one inch hUh and three-eighths of an inch wide. Owin to the door handle the eye could not be brought nearer to the keyhole than about four and onequarter inches. The door was some two inches thick. Looking through this keyhole, the engineer found the eye oouM see a field no more than one foot six inches wide and four feet high at a distance of seventeen feet from the keyhole. At half that distance from the door the field of vision was only half as great. In other words, the nearer the keyhole the smaller the field of vision. By moving the eye about in front of the keyhole the field of vision could be moved about irh n certain limits. The widest possible range of vision obtainable in thi way would be three feet wide and some six feet high. Some of these points will be made clearer, perhaps, by actually iooking through a keyhole and noting how, when looking plumb through It. the entire height and width o! the hole can be seen throujh. By looking aslant, the full wMth and height of the keyhole can at first still be used, but at greater slants one end of the keyhole begins to obstruct the field of vision, so that

enly a portion of the keyhole is available for viewing the inside of the room. Outside of the fields described, everything in the room Is quite invisible. The field of complete Invisibility Includes at least six feet Immediately In front of the keyhloe, so that if an untruthful keyhole witness were trapped Into describing the doormat just Inside the door, as seen through the keyhole, for Instance, the falsity of the testimony could easily be made apparent. But the great danger of keyhole testimony lies principally In the fact that even honest witnesses get false impressions when their observations are made under such disadvantageous circumstances. Not infrequently men have been sent to prison on the strength of keyhole testimony, and yet Its unreliability can ver- easily be demonstrated. The illustrations on this pasc.

V maid is here shown handling her mistress jewelry. The mistress is in the room, but would be quite invisible to a keyhole peeper. In the event of a subsequent theft of the jewelry the testimony of the keyhole witness would be very apt to fasten suspicion on the maid, and result in an unjust conviction.

which are based on the scientific data obtained by the engineer previously referred to. show very graphically what serious mistakes :r.ay be made by even honest keyhole witnesses. A suicide may. under such circumstances, be very easily mistaken for a murder, and an innocent participant in the tragedy be accused of the crime. The illustration at the top of th' page depicts Just such a scene. It shows a man about to commit suicide and his companion rushing forward to prevent the commission of the crime. Suppose thf men were brothers, with voices very similar, and that as the one rushed forward t" prevent the suicide he cried "Don't shoot!" Attracted by the altercation, a Copyright, 1&1Ö.

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how a person who sought to prevent the tragedy mi situation is shown in the picture to the right.

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person passing the door would be very apt to peep through the keyhole. If. as the observer placed his eye to the keyhole, the pistol went off and the suicide fell back dead, it is more than likely that the witness would be absolutely convinced that a murder had been committed and he had seen it. Only a very small portion of this tragic scene would have been visible to the keyhole witness. The illustration shows what a wrong impression it would be apt to give. Even if there had been time enojgh between the uttering of the words "Don't shoot" and the firing of the shot for the witness to have moved his eye tu and fro in front of the keyhole, hi range of vision would by the Star Con.ny. Great Unu.n

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An actual photograph, showing how a keyhole view of a couple dancing might readily be misconstrued.

not hare been sufficiently enlarged to have given him an accurate idea of just what was occurring in the room. Another illustration on this page presents another situation which is w 11 within the bounds of probability. A man and woman are dancing!"" Suddenly the lady gives a cry of distress. She has had an attack of heart disease. A keyhole witness, who has been taking ic.the scene, throws open the door and rushes in the room Just as the woman collapses. Suppose the woman dies? Would not the partial view obtainable through the keyhole, as disclosed in the H'ustration on this page, taken in connection with the woman's cry, be very apt to lead to the man's arrest for murder, with the keyhole pt?ere acting a star witness against him? Equally within the bounds of probability is a third scene illustrated on this page. A servant Is going through her mistress's bureau, fingering the various pieces of Jewelry which lie in the drawer. Suppose a keyhole witness observed th maid while thus occupied, and that some months ifterward one of the pieces of je velry were missing? ,Would not th testimony of this witness be very apt to fasten suspicion on the servant n question, even though, as shown in the picture, in this particular Rlgbts Keetryed.

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f . , L " t Vr"r nr.J ' I Instance, the mall's mistress was ir the room with her while she was handling the jewelry? The mistress is in the area of invisibility and would, therefore, have ben unseen by the keyhole witness, and the maid might find it hard to prove thp actual f3ct when confronted with the testimony of the witness. These cases are suppositions, but who knows the number of men and women. who have been sent to

How We Can Deceive Our Muscles

T HE act of a batsman in two bats toeether hefting around a few times before he takes his place at the plate to hit at a ball with a single bat is now considered an event of deep psychological significance. As all the world knows, the reason the batter does this is to mak the single heavy bat feel lighter, and to fool his arm ino believing that it can make the sincle bat gambol through the atrnusr here with great speed, having been frd of the incubus of the other bat. Psychology has found out that .t is actually possible to fool the cles as if they were people almo: t. This is demonstrated in the label -atory by making the arm. sj. . j through certain rhythiaic ame

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Jail, or even to death, on keyho'o testimony of this calibre? How many homes have been broken up and innocent people condemned through Just such unreliable evidence? In the divorce case previously quoted, in which Judge Cohalan refused to accept the evidence of a keyhole witness and set aide the verdict of a Jury which had found a doctor guilty of conduct entitling Iiis wife to a divorce, not only was the doctor himself greatly wronged, apparently, but his patient, who was named as corespondent, was even more grievously harmed. The question of the unreliability of such evidence was mere thoroughly gone into, perhaps, in the divorce case of Julia W. A. Plbrecht against Henry A Slcbreht. Jr., of New RocheTc, N. Y.. a year or two ago. In th.it case the principal witness against Slebrecht was a woman, who testified that through a stovepipe hole in the ceiling of the room which Plebrecht was occupying .she had pcen him kissing a woman who was boarding In the same ho'ise. This stovepipe hole was der-lnred by the defendant to have been some six and a half inches wide, but its depth interfered greatly with the view obtainable into the room below. Atchitects who had made accurate measurement x of th room !n question and its furniture In relation to the stovepipe hole went on the stand and swore that It was quite impossible for th- witness to have seen what she testified to because only Sibrecht's f-et nnd thes" of the woman in he room wkh him would have been visible. Everything else In the room would havp been out of rane of vision. Nevertheless, the. Jury found against Siebrecht. The casp was appealed and the Appellate Court reversed the decision. "The evidence shows," thev rjr. clared, "that the possible ranne of vlaion did not permit the viw to which the Inculpating witness referred, hence the findings ar apalnst the wejpht of evidence." It is possible that thee two cases may serve to emphasize th unreliability of keyhole testimony in general, and in that way the miscarriage of justice In future cases may pehaps be prevented. ments for n short while, and then running in a variation on it. For instance, a person is to'.d to lift and put down in succession a comparatively heavy weicht, this a light weight, etc. He goes through these motions several times, and then the liht weight is chr-nged for one tomewhat heavier. Of cour?e it !s the earae size as all the others, so that th person's mind will not be preju diced beforehand, goes to lift this spontaneously as When the liaiid or. it rises as with the very Mght weight used before. Ordinarily it is shown In th laboratory that we'.phts are lifted by the subject at different rates of speed, the heavier the slower. plcc uacoDOo!7.

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