Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1882-05-30
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TUESDAY EVENING. MAY 80. 1852.

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TUESDAY EVENING. MAY 80. 1889.
Is Justice Here u "Farce p
The Nesc Era, in commenting upon
the strange instruction of District At
torney Davis to the chief of police that
he must make complaint against the
mayors special fire-bug detective as we'll
as against the fire-bug he caught, pro-
ceeds to remark very significantly that,
The public is in no mood to be trifled
with concerning the administration of
Justice. Public opinion-and We are
sorry to have to put it on records
fast settling down to the conviction that
Lancaster county justice is farce. The
common talk is that if a man has
influential friends or money enough
to avail himself of the exhaustless delays
and technicalties of the law, he can
fire buildings or perpetrate red-handed
murder itself with impunity, finally es.
Gaping, if no other avenue is open, through
influences thrown into the jury box by
L" ways that are dark" but by tricks that
are by no means vain in the estima-
tion Of lawyers whose chief claim to dis
tinction is their ability to secure jury to
suit the case in hand. That such things
should be talked about and believed is a
sad commentary upon the administratio ON
Of justice. Where there is much smoke
there must be some fire, and the smoke
which now ascends from our temple of
Justice has become almost suffOcating. 1t
is about time the judicial detectives
should look after the legal fre-bugs who
furnish the oiland matches.
That is a severe arraigHment of the
administration of justice in Lancaster
county. The INTELLIGENCER has
heretofore found occasion to challenge
the methods of our courts but We do
not think it has eve: said anything more
denunciatory than this utterance from a
journal that has lately presented the
presiding judge of this court to the Re-
publicans of the state as their fittest can.
didate for the supreme bench. Lam
caster county JUSTICE" as administered
BY this court, we are now told 6 is a
farce" The common talk is that a
man with money or influential friends
"can fire buildings or perpetrate red
handed murder itself with impunity,''
and escape finally" if no otherave
is open,' through tampering with the
jury box.
The lNTELLIGENC ER. for n.aking
some intimatiOn of this kind in Il much
more guarded way, fell under the anath,
ema of "this here court" and its editors
were disbarred. Probably the very severe
way in which our benign and benighted
judges burned their judicial fingers on
that occasion may so inspire them with
the discretion that is so much better
than rash valor, that they will not uE'
dertake to send the Ne~ Era editor to
Jail for contempt. But if they know
what their own dignity requires. and
what is demanded to preserve the re
spect in which their court should lie
held, they will at once request the editor
of the New E,'a to say upon what evi
dence he charges that Lancaster county
justice is farce, and that money OF in
iluence releases prisoners, and that the
jury box is tampered with. These are
too serious charges to he passed by un
needed by the judges. They demand in
vestigatiOn.
There is common talk such as the Nc,.
Era repeats. We understand that it has
been inspired TO its utterance by what is
said concerning the result of the Miller
homicide trial just concluded, and in
which verdict was rendered that un.
doubtedly is not sustained by the public
judgment. Judge Livingston presided
over the trial. The jury panel was ex-
hausted, as it always is in murder cases.
The sheriff summoned jurymen from the
bystanders. The lawyers put in theil
work, the Judge had little to say to tht
jury beyond defining for them the de-
grees of murder, and Miller was &C
quilted. Miller is man of means ant
influence in his section and an active
politician of the Republican persuasion
Possibly the thing was fairly done
and possibly not the Ne,o Era seems t.
think not it says the people think not
and we think very likely not.
You see how the thing could have
been done, with a court none too sharp
lawyers none too scrupulous, an eas.
clerk and benign sheriff. The lawyer
would exhaust the panel; among the by
ISLANDERS would be plenty of the prison
er's friends; the lawyers would no
know it, the sheriff would not recognize
them and the court would not see it
and yet they would get Oh the jury. 1
is good thing for prisoner to hav
his friends or his lawyers friends on TIN
jury. But it is not a good thing TO
a court Of justice that the thing should
he done so easily and perhaps so hon
estly. The court officers need not ne
cessarily be corrupt to make the game
successful they had only to be stupidity
good ratured from the bench down.
But such things would not happen il
a court where justice was administered
by alert and acute as well as homes
ministers 4; even under our present sys
tenn of drawing jurors, which so sadl.
ceeds amendment. Talesmen ought t.
be drawn from the bystanders only OF
rare and unexpected occasions /; it shoul'
never happen, as it now does, that TIN