Court convened on October 30, and spectators packed the courtroom to watch America’s foremost defense attorney spar with District Attorney Robert F. Toms and his aggressive assistant, Lester S. Moll. Darrow’s assistants argued that Sweet could not receive a fair trial in Detroit and urged a change of venue, but Darrow rejected their advice. He had been impressed by the impartiality of the presiding judge, Frank Murphy. Darrow believed a good lawyer "should be able to tell something about a man by looking at his face," and he liked what he saw in Murphy.

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Darrow’s judgment proved sound. Murphy, who would later become governor of Michigan and an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, consciously strove to insure that any person who appeared before him–rich or poor, black or white–enjoyed the same rights. Darrow wrote after the trial that Murphy "proved to be the kindliest and most understanding man I have ever happened to meet on the bench. . . ."

Selecting an impartial jury proved difficult. Darrow questioned 150 potential jurors, attempting in the process to educate them in black history. He thought that if he could enlighten the 12 men chosen, his clients stood a chance. It took five weeks to choose the jury. "The case is won or lost now," Darrow remarked to his associates. "The rest is window dressing."

The state called 71 witnesses to support its assertion that the Sweets had "feloniously, willfully and of their malice aforethought" armed themselves with the intent to kill anyone threatening the house. Prosecuting attorneys said the shootings were unprovoked, that prejudice played no part in the drama, and that no unruly mob had assembled that night. Inspector Schuknecht testified that the neighborhood had been quiet and that he had told his men he would use "every man in the police station" to guard Sweet’s right to live in the home.

Darrow worked on crossword puzzles at the defense table while the prosecution laid out its case, but he was paying close attention to the proceedings. Noticing that whites dominated the large courtroom crowds, he told Judge Murphy that a larger percentage of blacks should be witnesses to a trial that meant so much to the black population. Murphy agreed. As the trial progressed, more and more blacks filled the courtroom.

Darrow appeared relaxed during cross-examination but he managed to pry a few crucial statements from the prosecution’s witnesses. Police admitted that traffic outside Sweet’s home was so congested that two men had been assigned to direct it. Each time a witness described the crowd as being no more than 25 or 30 people, Darrow pointedly asked why he had been in the neighborhood. After hearing the same response from almost every witness–that they were "curious"–Darrow sarcastically mused how odd it was that so many whites had been curious at the same time about a black family.

In a significant breakthrough for the defense, two teenage boys indicated that the crowd had indeed posed a threat to the Sweets. Urlic Arthur testified that he had watched four or five youths hurl rocks at the Sweet house. When Darrow quizzed Dwight Hubbard, about the crowd’s size, the boy answered, "There was a great crowd–no, I won’t say a great crowd, a large crowd–well, there were a few people there and the officers were keeping them moving." Darrow jumped on this confusion and asked if Hubbard had talked to anyone about the case. The boy admitted that he had forgotten to characterize the crowd as "a few people," as he had been coached to do.

There had been few emotional outbursts at the trial so far. Prosecutor Toms made a point to be pleasant to Darrow, trying to prevent his opponent from erupting in one of his famed courtroom speeches. Hoping for the battle to heat up, though, a frustrated Darrow complained, "God damn it, Toms, I can’t get going. I am supposed to be mad at you and I can’t even pretend that I am."

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