The jury feel that no prisoner would _deny_ a fact that it would be much easier to _explain away_--and believe him.
I once represented an Italian called the King of Mulberry Street, who was charged with having deliberately shot in the head and killed a respectable dealer in olive-oil against whom he held no grudge whatsoever.

The King was just an egotistic little man who liked notoriety and admiration.

He was wont to refer to himself simply as "The Bravest Man," without reference to time or place--just "The Bravest Man." He was accustomed to demonstrate his bravery by shooting inoffensive people whenever the idea seized him.

He never killed anybody save quiet and law-abiding fellow citizens who made no resistance, and the method he selected was to shoot them through the head.

He seemed to feel that it was essential to his dignity thus to execute at least one human being every six months, and the extraordinary feature of his history was that he had never been convicted.
The case that I was called upon to defend was this: Not having killed anybody for nearly a year and fearing to jeopardize his dual title of King of Mulberry Street and The Bravest Man, he put a forty-four calibre pistol in his pocket, donned his Sunday clothes and took a walk.