WOM'EN: Darkness in Philadelphia

WOMEN

It seemed an open & shut case. A 205-Ib. barkeeper named Jim Comber, half seas over from a night of drinking, had brawled with a drunken companion on a Philadelphia street. The friend staggered and fell; witnesses hurrying to work at dawn saw Jim Comber kick him repeatedly in the head after he was down. Minutes later the man was dead. The prosecution asked for a second-degree murder conviction. Judge Joseph Sloane, summing up, told the jurors: "I do not see how you can find the defendant not guilty."

Then the jurors—all twelve of them women—retired. They were back, after less...

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