New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1872-03-09
CAPITAL CRIME.

Senator Robertson's bill to abolish Capital
Punishment derives additional weight from
the character and experience OF its author'
Conservative and cautious by nature, he has
for many years been intimately associated
with the administration Of justice in one OF
our largest COunties--one which, from It's
contiguity to our City, is exceptionally in
tested with criminals. Beside serving with
credit through several sessions OF either House
Of our Legislature, he has been by turns DIS
trict-Attorney and County Judge. and thus
has enjoyed unusual opportunities for ac-
quainting himself with the impulses the cal
culations. and the apprehcnsions, of those who
wage war on the rights of person and prop
erty. Without protesting any special intimacy
or understanding with our Senator, we can
hardly be mistaken IN assuming that
he has been moved to propose the
abolition Of the Death Penalty By no sent
mentalism, no fnawkish humanity, but by
profound conviction that that penalty proiiers
impunity to crimes of violence, by rendering
convictions of murder so rare that the dread
of them is hardly felt. The criminal class
note the fact that there is not one capital
punishment for every twenty murders-(in
fact, we believe three hundred persons we're
feloniously killed in this City within the year
1871, while not more than five cOnyicts were
bung)-sO they "take the chances" and
crafty their avarice or their vengeance in the
reasonable expectation that they will almost
certainly escape the laws dread penalty.
-"Then you mean that hanging is played
"Out,' because you who condemn 1t have rem
"dered it odiOus and revoltingW
No, we do not. Men are, perhaps, no more
honest, but certainly less bloody minded, than
they formerly were it would not be possible
to string up petty thieves by thousands as
was done in England so late as the time OF
Henry VIII. But the real difficulty is not that
the majority are hostile by conviction to legal
killing. But crime covers in darkness; the
most heinous murders being precisely those
which can only be proved by circumstantial
evidence. Now, circumstances may deceive,
lust as witnesses may lie and the average
Juror says to himself, "The accused may pos
" sibly be innOcent--innOcent men have been
9" hung on testimony no stronger than this
sit is better that the guilty should be left to
&" the justice of God than that the innocent
"be ANONYMOUSLY laughtered'-and so he says
Not Guilty m-meaning only that there is
possibility of the prisoners innocence, and he
shrinks from making a mistake whereof the
consequences are irremediable. Were the
penalty IMPRISONMENT for life, he would say
Guiltym knowing that, If future develop
ments should prove this mistake, the error
could and would be corrected in case the
condemned were expiatng his presumed Of
Tense in prison. We cannot doubt that, If the
legal penalty of murder were other than death,
many more murderers would be convicted,
and at far less expense, than now are.
We beg Senator Robertson to press his bill
tenaciousIy, and to accept any amendment
even to the extent of leaving the choice
between death and perpetual imprisonment
to the iury-rather than allow it to fail.