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When their turn came, the Goldmarks' lawyers maintained that the kind of charges made by the defendants could "drive from office every decent man who ever sought it." Attorney William Dwyer found the defense "one long tortured attack against Mrs. Goldmark. They've said every conceivable dirty thing about that woman they could say without being held in contempt of court."
The Verdict. After both sides rested Judge Theodore Turner instructed the jury. In a dry, almost uninflected voice, he read a list of 40 separate legal points. Criticism of public officials and candidates, he emphasized, is normally privileged—even when the criticism is extravagant and unjustified. The question for the jury—and for political campaigners elsewhere—was whether such freewheeling attacks as had beaten John Goldmark reach beyond the limits of fair comment.
The nine men and three women, cooped up in a 9-ft. by 20-ft. attic room at the top of the old county courthouse, took five days to decide. Last week the jury awarded John Goldmark $40,000 in damages. Not one of the defendants got off.