The Sweetwater enterprise. (Sweetwater, Tenn.) 1869-187?, 1871-04-06
THE INTERNAL REVENUE.
Judge EmmOnS, Of the U. s. Circuit
Court, on the Severity of the PEN
alties Of the Law and its Uses and
Abuses. Important to Lawyers
and Business Men.

CO"Ap WI OhO cO'OlAUg VI IHO CIl-
alties Of the Law and its Uses and
Abuses. Important to Lawyers
and Business Men.
From the Memphis Avalanche, March goth.
In the case Of the United States VS..
Ward, Judge Emmons yesterday morning
excluded as irrelevant certain testimony
offered to show that the neglect of to pay
u special tax had resulted from mistake.
Tie said, if admitted, it would not tend to
prove the facts necessary to raise the legal
question upon which the learned counsel
for the defendant relied. He suggested
that a slightly different theory from that
put forth would explain the omission of
the defendant, and quite as fully show the
absence of all fraudulent intent. His
honor here remarked upon the leading
facts, and conceded that, if nothing else
appeared, they seemed to exclude an in
territorial violation of the law, and consti-
tuted a ft case for presentation to another
department of the government.
His honor then made some general ref
crences to former trials, and said he did
not desire to make the subject of these
penal statutes annoying, but he did not in
tend to abandon it while the impolitic,
and he might say almost impossibility Of
enforcement of seventies remained un-
modified. His duties under them we're
often painful in the extreme. With laws
so excessively punitive that heightened and
honest jurors demanded the most couclu-
sive proof before they would convict, the
Congress which had created them had SO
limited the power of the administrators,
that not over oue-fourth of the professional
force necessary to prepare causes for trial
was afforded. On Tuesday a defendant
indicted for retailing liquor, was acquit-
ted, whom | presume many thought guilty.
A single witness swore he supposed the
defendant was the proprietor of a hotel,
from the fact that be employed him. There
was no corroborative testimony. 1t was
a fact capable of the readiest proof. 1t
could have been made certain beyond all
controversy. The charge l felt compelled
to give, looking to the fact that it was o
State prison %ofense, made the acquittal
by the jury highly proper. l am fire.
quently perplexed as to what my duty is !;
whether to hold rigidly to the old common
law rules, demand a full compliance in all
cases with their strict requirements, or
simply admit what is relevant, and as too
frequently occurs in common courts, leave
the counsel to wrangle it out before the
jury. io5 y 3m,a. ,,.
I'had no doubt / was and am pursuing
the right course, and should now have
none but for the evil example of going
through the form of trial when the public
knows the offender is guilty, but he es-
capes because of the unnatural and useless
severity of the penalty and the inadequate
instrumentalities provided by the law for
conviction. L cannot, however, believe
the duties of the Court should be modi-
fed by the imperfect organization of the
force, whose duty it is to bring the facts
before it, While I sympathize greatly
with our overburdened and able District
Attorney, | cannot submit q case to the
jury whose verdict finding the citizen
guilty Of some triviul and accidental Of
fence necessarily sends him to prison for
years without careful judicial criticism,
aud pointing out fully those defectsi in the
evidence which my own experience de-
tects. .-fe.i fsti iltGro4