I, Jane Doe

I don't think you have enough nerve, baby.

Murder.

Homicide.

Get me the city desk.

Hang on, Chief. This will floor you. Stephen Curtis.

That's the guy. The playboy. Killer caught red-handed.

Only it ain't a 'him'. It's a 'her'.

Who is she? What's her name?

What kind of stupid answer is that?

She won't tell? What do I use for headlines?

What name did the book her under?

The state is demanding the life of this girl for the death of Stephen Curtis.

But I tell you, ladies and gentlemen.

If you send Jane Doe to the electric chair, you'll not be executing her.

She will be committing suicide.

Why? I don't know.

She has so strongly resisted efforts to say who she is or where she came from.

That she must be tried in this court as Jane Doe.

Even I am here against her wishes.

For she did not want an attorney.

Yes. I know I will be accused of asking for sympathy for my client.

I do not ask sympathy for Jane Doe.

But I do ask .. mercy.

The District Attorney will, no doubt ..

Warn you against being led into false sympathy.

By the silence or the youth of the defendant.

I ask you to judge her upon what the evidence show her to be.

A girl who wanted another woman's husband so badly.

So jealously.

That she killed him.

Rather than let Stephen Curtis remain with the woman to whom he was wedded.

You have heard the testimony of Mrs Stephen Curtis.

Without vindictiveness, she testified that she heard the shots.

And entered the room to find her husband dead. At the feet of this girl.

But Mrs Curtis asks only justice.

Not revenge.

And the state asks only justice.

And justice demands ..

Guilty! Jane Doe found guilty.

Extra. Read all about it.

Jury arrives at verdict in record time.

Extra. Read all about it.

Jane Doe guilty. Faces electric chair.

Extra.

Jane, time is growing very short.

It is life or death.

Help me to help you.

Mr Horton.

I don't want to live.

The defendant will rise and face the court.

Jane Doe.

You've had a fair and impartial trial as provided by the laws of New York state.

And found guilty of murder in the first degree.

The jury made no recommendation for leniency.

Is there anything you wish to say before the court pronounces sentence?

No. There is nothing.

No more distasteful a duty can be imposed on a judge than ..

That which I am now compelled to perform.

This has been an extraordinary case.

You have refused to testify in your own behalf.

You entered this country under a forged Portuguese passport.

Bearing the fictitious name of Annette Fontaine.

Making any effort to learn your true identity futile.

Perhaps your refusal to divulge your identity.

And thus shield others from the shame of your crime.

Is praiseworthy.

But it cannot condone the crime itself.

Therefore.

I order that the person of Jane Doe.

Be delivered to the warden of the state penitentiary.

In Ossining New York.

And that there during the week of August 14th.

At a time to be set by the warden.

You be put to death in the electric chair.

May God have mercy on her soul.

What seems to be the trouble? - Psychic shock.

Brought on by the strain of the trial.

Shock at hearing sentence pronounced. Grief possibly.

Psychic shock. I see.

Jane Doe goes in there? - Yep.

I have an order for her removal to Sing Sing.

You must ask the Doc when he comes out.

He's been in there half an hour.

Okay.

That was a very good diagnosis. - Thank you, sir.

As far as it went.

Her shock was not caused entirely by her court experience.

This girl is going to have a baby.

Jane Doe the mystery woman.

Convicted of the murder of wealthy Stephen Curtis collapsed today.

As judge Bertrand sentenced her to die in the electric chair.

Jane Doe is the name given Curtis's beautiful killer by the law.

When she refused to reveal her true identity.

Or to testify in her own defense.

And so, as Jane Doe, she will go to the electric chair.

Just a moment, ladies and gentlemen. Just a moment.

I have just been handed a bulletin.

" Further examination by the prison doctor .."

" Revealed the reason for Jane Doe's collapse this afternoon ."

" She is to become a mother ."

That trial.

Haven't you taken enough of a beating during the trial ..

Without listening to the gruesome details over the radio?

That's what I've been asking her. Only more cleverly of course.

There must some other way to spoil an evening, I said.

She paid just as much attention then as now.

I'm sorry. I wasn't listening.

Bill, what about that girl?

Well, you can't execute a woman in her condition.

So it means an automatic stay until after the baby is born.

Then what?

Jane Doe will see another Christmas.

And then pay her debt to society.

And society will have another orphan to rear in some state institution.

Bill.

I need your help.

I want to do something while there's still time.

For that girl?

Well.

Yes. For both.

Eve. You were a lawyer once yourself. You know that's impossible.

There never was a more open-and-shut case of premeditated murder.

And a baby won't change that.

One more stop and I'm done.

Done in, you mean. Where next?

Something for Bill. I wonder what.

Why not get him one of those hand-painted ties?

With the big, beautiful ..

No? - No.

Extra! Murderess becomes a mother.

What's the matter?

Extra! Murderess becomes a mother.

Jane Doe has a baby.

Extra. Extra.

Jane Doe faced the electric chair.

Extra. Merry Christmas, lady.

Extra. Read all about it.

Visitor.

Hello.

Oh.

Mrs Curtis.

I have no right to intrude. I know.

But I wanted ..

Have you had good care?

Good care?

Yes.

I guess I have had good care.

If that's what you came here to ask.

The doctor says I'll be able to get up.

And walk in a few days.

But you should be careful.

Why?

I don't have far to go.

I just call it the last mile.

That was very tactless of me. I'm sorry.

I don't want your sympathy.

I didn't come her to offer it.

I am curious though.

Why didn't you tell them you were going to have a baby?

It might have made a difference. For the verdict, I mean.

I did not tell them because ..

I did not want it to be born.

Do you realize ..

You might have taken that baby to the electric chair with you?

Yes.

Why would you want to kill him?

It was your crime. Not his.

He has a right to live just as he had a right to be born.

Well .. he was born.

So now, Stephen and I have ..

A memory.

A living memory.

Hating our memories. Every day of his life.

You say he is innocent.

But have you any idea what the world will do to him for ..

Our sins?

I asked them to bring him in.

Is it alright?

Why ask me?

How does he look? - I wouldn't know.

Well.

Here he is.

I bet you're anxious for a peek at this young man.

But he is your baby and you haven't seen him yet.

I'll take him.

Hello, little fellow.

You want him, don't you?

That is why you came here.

Yes.

And you will probably get him.

He is a beautiful boy, Jane.

You look like your mummy. Do you know that?

The same eyes.

Maybe the same hair.

You are going to be the most handsome young man when you grow up.

Those arms and shoulders.

What a football player you'll make.

What's the matter with him? You're hurting him.

The only thing hurting him is his manly tummy.

He is hungry.