New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1870-03-30
HOW H1YGING SECURES IMMUNITY TO
CRIME

The Legislature of Pennsylvania is expected
soon to vote on a bill which proposes that the
jury which adjudges culprit guilty of Muir
der shall also adjudge that he be punished by
death or by Imprisonment for life as to it shall
seem best. We hope that this bill may pass,
for many reasons and among them because 1t
will preclude the too general escape OF MUIR
derers from any legal punishment at all
Within sight of our Cty's steeples, there
have been not less than one hundred murders
per annum for the last three years; yet not five
men per annum have been hung within that
radius. If it be held that the murderer goes
unpublished unless his life be taken by the
State, then it is clear that but one murderer in
twenty is punished. There can be little terror
to evil-doers in a penalty so rarely enforced.
All experienced that certainty of punish
ment is far moro effective than its severity
Yet certainty is not now attained, If it ever
were; and the remark of the murderer Rey-
nolds (Or Breen) that " Hanging is played out"
proves that ruflans and miscreants fully under
stand this. and act accordingly.
Now it is as easy as it is false to say that
the general failure to convict murderers is a
result of morbid sentiment-of maudlin philan-
thropy. Those who uphold hanging are as
slow to convict where the penalty is death as
the rest of us. They shrink from sending a
man to the gallews, not that they revolt at
the thought of taking life, but that they fear
to mistake where error, though detected, is ut
terly without remedy And so they disagree,
or adiudge the crime not clearly brought home
to the prisoner
Human testimony is fallible; that of circum-
la. a.
| during his first year of service, he pardOned
quite a number of persons upon incOntestable
proof that they had been convicted of offenses
which they never committed. Some of these
were adjudged guilty on the testimony of the
| actual culprits, who screened themselves
from punishment by swearing their own
guilt upon others. In other cases, the circum-
stances which POINTED to the conclusion at
tanned by the jury were afterward shown to
be consistent with the innocence of the man
they convicted. For eighty years, the surviving
relatives of Lesurques, who was guillOtined
in France for robbery and murder have
been strenuousy endeavOring to procure a
legal attestatop of his clearly proven innO-
cence, but have not yet obtained it, Tribunals
hate to confess their own blunders; and it is
a burning shame that this State of New-YOrk
persists to this hour in pdrdoning those whom
she has uDjustly accused, arrested, indicted.
tried convicted, sentenced and punished, for
crimes whereof they have since been proved
absolutely guiltless.
Murderers are usually persons of unrcgulated
minds and Overmastering passions. 1t is rarely
difficult to prove that they have acted strangely.
and without reasonable motive. The bounda-
res between insanity, ccccntricty, and what
has be0n termed "pure cusscdness,1 are irrcg-
ular and not clearly defined. Sanity is rather
relative than absolute. Many if not most
homicdcs are committed by persons of brutal
proclivities, low mental development, and duh
moral perceptions We doubt that the really
insane are generally so devoid of moral conscious
ness as not to know better than to kill What they
lack is not so much Il sense of right and wrong
rs perception of the considerations which
should impel them to do right. And cases are
constantly occurring in which, while it ia clear
that the accused is neither thoroughly sane
nor absolutely insane, it is very difficult to
decide that he is 'or is not sane enough To
deserve punishment for his evil deeds.
| If the penalty of an oilcnse he imprisonment
| for life, the jury has "A comparatively easy task
merely to decide whether this person did or
did not commit the crime laid To his charge
If he did, convict him, though his intellect be
weak or impaired. and his moral sense obtuse /;
for he will be safer in prison than elsewhere
and less likely TO iDjure others aud. il his