The Buchanan County guardian. (Independence, Buchanan County, Iowa) 1858-1864, 1859-03-24
A Southern Jury.

AZ Some weeks ago, a ruffian named
Lowe, in Hancock county, Kentucky,
armed himself for fight with the Dis
trict Attorney, insulted him il crowd
in the Court House, and subsequently,,
these parties and their friends, with pis-
tolls, knives and guns, engaged in gem
eral melee in the streets. A friend of
LOVES was Instantly killed, and he him
self wounded. Officers finally stopped
the melee, arrested LOWE and lodged
him in Jail. Subsequently. two men went
TO the jalor, presented pistol to his
breast, demanded and obtained the key
of the prison. They then proceeded to
LOVES cell, unlocked the door, and as
he lay there wounded, each of them fred
three shots into his body, any one of
which would have killed him.
The matter was brought before the
grand jury of Hancock county, which,
after due elaboration and examination Of
the facts, which they detail substantially
AS given by us, they find no grounds for
indicting the murderers, but represent
the killing as justifable, inasmuch as the
murderers believed that their lives would
be in danger from LOWE after his release,
and that they were merely carrying out
a law of self-preservation. If this is not
cowardly justification Of most brutal
murder. we know not what can be con-
sidered such. If it is not bid, an offer
ed premium for assassination, we cannot
conceive what could justly be so denom-
mated Every paper We pick up is filled
almost to repletion with chronicles Of
murder and assassination-from one end
of the country to the other, comes up
groan of horror and of terror over some
deed of butchery- until We are led 10
wonder and exclaim at this carnival of
crime, and ask ourselves why it is. The
solution is difficult one, but it seems
to us to lie to large extent in the fact
that at the present day legal technical
ties are allowed to interfere so often and
SO successfully with the course of justice,
rs to encourage black hearted villainy to
perpetrate its most horrid conceptions
BY means of appeals. bills of exceptions,
writs Of errors, or flaws in indictments,
wholly technical and most trivial, Grim
inals know that conviction is rather the
exception than the rule, and therefore
punishment enters but slightly into their
calculations ofcrime. And when we find,
as in the above case, direct and un-
qualified endorsement by grand jury
of most inhuman butchery of an un-
armed and wounded man, and that too,
within the walls of public prison,
which the murderers had invaded by
force and threatenings against public
eeryant-when we find this pronounced
by the conseryators of the lives and prop
erty of the people, jusifable act, we
are led 10 tremble at the future it invites.
The crimes that called into existence
San Francisco Vigilance Committee, and
also forced the late popular uprisings for
the punishment of villains, in different
sections of the country, are but the le-
gitimate fruits Of this most vicious nfu-
ence of legal quirks and bubbles, and
disregard of the claims of justice. But
these upheavings of the indignation of
the people, are only created when Sc
rles of deeds of enormity, or continu-
Gus course Of crime, so UNPUBLISHED, and
consequently they are inadequate TO make
a uniform and lasting impression upon
villains and crime. This can only be
done b. the regularly constituted tribu-
mails Of the county but when we find
these counlenancing and unfolding crime
though the machinery of cowardly grand
juries, as in the above case, or by too
great Difference for the mere TECHNICAL
ties of law, at sacrifice Of the claims Of
justice, we become alarmed, and wonder
where the present dire results of such
policy will eliminate. When law be-
comes only, and always, an auxiliary Of
justiee-not above or superceding her
and when the edicts OF the latter shall be
promptly rendered and quickly enforced,
then we we may expect to see barrier
raised. strong enough to stop this wave
of murder and crime now rolling oyer
the country-and, we believe, not till
then.
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