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A new trial started in March 1928, but ended two weeks later when Hoffman's attorney collapsed with a heart attack. Six months later another jury disagreed. He had now served five of his twenty-year sentence. There didn't seem much hope in going on. But Hoffman refused to give up. There was still one card to play—Samuel Leibowitz, an attorney who had saved many innocent people from conviction. To him Hoffman appealed.
1928年3月法庭再次并庭進行了審理，但兩周后，霍夫曼的律師因突發(fā)心臟病死了，審判也因此中斷了。六個月后，另一個陪審團拒絕重新開庭。20年的有期徒刑，霍夫曼已經(jīng)服刑了五年。看起來似乎沒有什么希望存在了。但是霍夫曼仍不放棄。他還有一張牌可出——塞繆爾·萊博維茨。作為一名律師，萊博維茨已經(jīng)挽救了許多無辜卻被定罪的人。霍夫曼懇求他予以幫助。
Leibowitz came to see Hoffman. He was impressed by his determination to fight on for his innocence, and by the fact that Hoffman realized that, in demanding yet another trial, he was gambling with death. Leibowitz agreed to take the case. Straight away, District Attorney Fach offered to accept a plea of guilty of manslaughter. Hoffman rejected it, adding that he wanted complete vindication or nothing.
萊博維茨來見霍夫曼。他非常欽佩霍夫曼為了自己的清白而堅決斗爭的決心。事實上，霍夫曼明白，如果要求再次審判，他將和死神賭博。萊博維茨同意接下這件案子。很快地，地區(qū)檢察官法赫提出，可以改判其為過失殺人罪。但霍夫曼拒絕了。他說他要么證明自己徹底無罪，要么什么都別做。
Hoffman's fourth trial started on 6 May 1929. As with all great attorneys, Leibowitz's power lay in the meticulous preparation he gave each case. Carefully he studied the records of Hoffman's previous trials. Three pieces of evidence pointed to Hoffman's guilt: his identification at the scene of the crime in company with the dead woman, the opinion of an acknowledged expert that his revolver was the murder weapon, and the apparent "consciousness of guilt" in his attempts to fake an alibi.
1929年5月6日開始了對霍夫曼案的第四次審理。正如所有偉大的律師一樣，萊博維茨的影響力在于他對每個案子的精心準(zhǔn)備。他非常仔細地研究了霍夫曼以前的庭審記錄。有三項證據(jù)表明霍夫曼有罪：他被指認在犯罪現(xiàn)場和受害者一同出現(xiàn)，他的手槍被資深專家鑒定為兇器，以及他企圖偽造不在場證據(jù)體現(xiàn)出的明顯的“負罪感”。
