Walter Pigeon plays the part of a truly disgraceful lawyer. He agrees to represent a defendant in a murder case, thereby assuming a duty of loyalty to his client. In the course of the trial he succeeds in establishing that the key eyewitness against his client could not reasonably identify his client in view of the poor lighting conditions and, most important, that the witness need eyeglasses which he was not wearing at the time. Having demonstrated that there is not only lacking evidence establishing guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, but a virtual lack of any evidence of guilt at all, the verdict of acquittal is inevitable. Indeed, the case should never have even gone to the jury; the judge should have entered judgment for the accused at the close of the prosecution's case. Upon discovering that his client really did the deed, the lawyer proceeds to assume the defense of the client for a second murder, one that he, the lawyer, committed, not the client, and proceeds to secure a conviction by withholding evidence, i.e., his own testimony that he, not the client, committed the second murder. He then goes on to provoke the client into killing him by, in effect, taunting him by revealing that he is the one who committed the second murder and getting the client to believe that he is prepared to see the client will be punished for the murder he did not commit. It is hard to imagine a lawyer betraying his duty of loyalty to his client so blatantly.
Review of The Unknown Man
