Workers summoned to testify arrive frightened, dressed in borrowed court clothes.

Evidence

The painter’s name was Thomas Barbas. Schlichtmann studied him from across the conference table. He was in his early forties, heavyset, his round face plump and smooth, his straight brown hair receding high on his brow. He wore an ill-fitting blue sports coat, tight around his shoulders and under his arms, on which he had buttoned all three buttons. He looked ill at ease in these clothes, much as Richard Aufiero had in his, as if they were the sort worn only on rare occasions, to church or to court. He sat erect and stolid in the chair next to Cheeseman, saying nothing and barely moving. Schlichtmann had the impression of a man who was not just nervous but frightened. — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action, 781

Categorization

• BMF: The witness whose clothes announce he has never been in a room like this evokes the small-time men brought before power in Home Boy’s milieu — dress as the tell that you don’t belong.
• SEED: Essay angle: the deposition as a class-crossing ritual, where the ill-fitting jacket telegraphs everything the transcript will not.