Theodore Roosevelt for the Defense by David Fisher

But to call Roosevelt was to also effectively abandon Ivins’s mostly theatrical effort to end the trial at this point. No pushback, no disputes and no cross-examination of the witness. By calling McGrath as his first witness, Ivins had elicited the critical testimony that the statements at issue were made at the direction of Roosevelt. “I will call the defendant and let him say so.”Ivins calling the defendant himself at this point in a trial was unorthodox if not downright risky. When the trial resumed, Barnes, who had absented himself for the defense opening, retook his seat only a few feet away from Roosevelt, but the short distance belied the vast gulf between them.īowers immediately made a motion for dismissal, raising two technical points first claiming Ivins had failed to present any evidence of malicious intent and second that the article never referred specifically to Barnes. In the corridors during the break for lunch, there was high praise for Van Benschoten’s strong opening people were heard to say that he had “scored points” and even more impressive, “was a good match for Ivins.” The burden of proving it to be true was now laid squarely on the defense.Īnd with that, Judge Andrews closed the morning session. He had what he needed Judge Andrews had ruled the article was defamatory or what the law characterized as “libel per se,” and he had proved that it was written and caused to be distributed by Roosevelt. It was an unexpected, audacious strategy, but typical of the courtroom surprises for which Ivins had become known. When his list was done, Ivins startled the courtroom by looking up at the judge and saying simply, “I rest my case.” The Colonel’s statement had been distributed far and wide, which was his precise intention. The defense did not dispute that list nor those numbers. To reinforce his point Ivins stood at the plaintiff’s table and opened a bundle of newspapers two feet high, consisting of sixty different newspapers from different cities throughout the country that had circulated the libel.

Ivins then proceeded to read the long list of the newspapers that had published the article, from Barnes’s own Albany Evening Journal to the New York World, newspapers with an aggregate circulation of 2,678,479. “At the direction of Theodore Roosevelt.”

Theodore Roosevelt for the Defense by David Fisher