Daily Kennebec journal., 1874-02-11
From the Boston Globe.
THE DEATH PENALTY.

Among the noteworthy suggestions in the
recent report Of the Attorney-General of the
Commonwealth, 10 one which relates to the
question of capital punishment. Experience,
according to him, shows that since the divis-
ion of murder into degrees, juries will not
convict in cases of circumstantial evidence,
where the penalty is death, although they
would convict were the punishment imprison-
ment for life. ''As our law now stands" says
the Attorney General, "secret murder in this
community may possibly have become one of
the safest of crimes" In view of these con-
siderations, the Attorney General submits to
the Legislature 'whether it is not desirable
either to abolish the death penalty, or to pro-
vide that whenever the jury shall find ver-
dict of guilty Of murder in the first degree,
with q recommendation to mercy, the death
penalty shall not be impo ssd, but the SEN
tenee shall be imprisonment for life." As the
certainty of punishment is of more force in
preventing crime than its severity, these sug
gestions Of the Attorney General have great
weight, if the facts justify his views. 1t has
been . question how far the unwillingness of
)uries to convict in capital cases is due to an
unreasoning sentimentalty, which a robust
education would remove; and how far i'm
prisonment for life, which in these days Of
pardons is merely nominal, could be relied
upon to prevent the preparation Of murder.
If the Attorney Generals suggestions
should be adopted, the pardoning power should
be taken from the Governor, and placed in
Board OF Commissioners or in the Supreme
Court; otherwise, we should be at the mercy
of the weakness of the executive or his advis-
ers, which, A. experience has proved, is often
overcome by the solicitations of the prisoner
or his friends. Whether imprisonment for
life would be found adequate to prevent the
increase of murders 10 question which ex
perienes only can determine, the conditions
Of society in different States or countries
where the death penalty is abolished not fur
sishing . solid ground for our guidance.
Russia, which has done away with capital
punishment, has the terrors of Siberia in its
place, and other European States that former
ly abolished the death penalty have found it
necessary to restore it, In two of the inte-
rior States of the Union, capital punishment
no longer exists. but opinions are divided as
to the advantages of the change, and it is by
no means certain that it would be adapted to
the requirements of our large seaboard cities
which receive the dreRs OF the population of
the Old and New Worlds. Capital punish
msnt is practically abolished in New York,
under the statute which makes extreme de-
liberation necessary to the commission of
murder in the first degree, and the fact that
young Walworth escaped death ui.d,r this
statute shows the difficulty attending convic-
tions in such cases.
II, a. seems to be the fact, there is grow
ing unwillin.ness Of juries to render verdict
of guilty where death is the penalty, the sub
stitution of imprisonment for life, if really en-
forced. would either diminish murder or ed
ucate the public up to the imperative nccessi-
" of capital punishment.