The defendant, who was on trial for assault and battery, claimed he barely pushed the victim. The prosecuting attorney, treating this story with derision, aggressively cross-examined the defendant. Finally, the prosecutor invited the defendant to step down from the witness box and demonstrate with the prosecutor how hard he had pushed the victim.
Secretly, the prosecutor assumed that, reacting to the hostility of the cross-examination, the accused would push him fairly hard, thereby guaranteeing his conviction.
The defendant no sooner stepped off the witness stand when he started punching and battering the prosecutor. Finally, after he had given him a righteous thrashing, he turned to the jury.
“I pushed the victim in this case about one-twentieth that hard.”
The jury unanimously acquitted him.
