New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1872-09-09

VIVA evident, after this, that the State had no
case. and those who represented the State, to
their honor be it said, were the first TO ac-
knowledge IL. We confess that we hardly re-
member any trial like this in the annals OF
criminal jurisprudence. The first lesson which
il teaches is the untrustwOrthiness OF what ID
usually called scientific evidence. AT the best
it is opinion, and it can have no more weight
thar the character and reputation and stand
ing of the witness may impart to 1t. Where
it happens, as it does not unfrequently, that
tw, scientific men positively contradict each
other, can anything be more criminally absurd
thin to call upon perfectly ignorant jury TO
decide between them I DR.. A. says that what
h, found in a certain stomach was prusslc
aid: DIR. b. is equally certain that 1T was
NOT and the iuryman, knowing nothing what
ever of tho matter, is required TO de-
tprmine, in a matter too Of life and deatn'
which of these learned men is right.
The old question is, Who shall de-
| tide when doctors disagreed Twelve men
n a box says one theory of law-twelve men
who know nothing of chemistry, OF poisons'
or even of the relative professional standing
of the contradictory witnesses! And it is after
| this loose IdSDlOD ludt VIC phho o""J NH~
of human beings in order that we may make
life safe and respected! If DR.. Schoeppe mad
been frendless, as so many men convicted OF
murder are, or, even with all his friends, IL
he had been convicted in State IN which
execution of the laws was summary, the
foulest wrong which can be inflicted upon a
human being would have been his fate. Why
call law science when it can be held justly
amenable to such an opprObrium OF uncer-
taiDtyf Why boast of the precision of science,
when the blunders of its professors can thus
doom wretch to strangulationf WHO shall
"decide when doctors disagreep is an old
question never yet answered; and we shall
hardly extricate ourselves from the dilemma
by referring the matter to Jurles. Human III
trinity must be admitted and allowed for In
all legal processes, in which plumbers always
have been made and will be Till the
last court adjourns sine die. But we commit
a criminally inexcusable and shamefully ar
rogant blunder, when we put 1t out OF our
mower to correct judicial blunders and to re-
dress grievances inflicted in the name of the
law. Suppose that all those innocent persons who
have been capitally executed by our own courts
alone could rise up to shake their trembling
fingers at misdirecting judges and at mis-
guided jurors, thus being enabled, by the
special mercy of Cod to vindicate their own
innocence, and to demonstrate our judicial
fallibility Nothing about Hanging aston
ishes us so much as the nonchalance with
which it is inflicted. Under certain circum-
stances we put men out of existence with
oualms as few and as feeble as those which
the necessary slaughter of vermin occasion.
However, this has nothing to do with the
present question, except las it should intensity
the caution with which we decide upon guilt
and innocence. If we must hang, let us at
least be sure that we hang according to our
own professions and principles