Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-11-27
A SHAMEFUL DEFEAT OF JUSTICE.

murder OF Uiancey was coWaruiy ahu
deliberate assassination, and it was crime
committed in revenge for the faithful per-
Torrance of his duty to the community by
a courageous and conscientious journalist.
No jury could have brought in verdict OF
acquittal in this case without violating its
oath, and without ignoring toe plain facts
of the homicide. The assassin has been
acquitted, but vino will acqgit the men
who declared him innocent of the blood of
his victim This case, however, disgrace
full end revolving as tits, does not, unfortu.
nseeiy, stand alone. The claws delays, !"
in this State, have for years been awaited
of in the same manner to defeat justice,
and the plan followed has actually become
recognized part of every criminal law.
yer's equipment. When a particularly
atrocious murder is committed, and public
opinion is for once heated to the pitch of
danger, the first step taken is to procure
delay in the trial Of the case. Unfortu-
nately this has never yet proved difficult.
The Courts and the rules of practice and
the laws all seem to be in the interest of
the defendant at such times. So he is
kept quietly in Jail until the people have
had time to forget the crime, and it does
not take long for that in SO mercurial a
community az that of California, II after
all an honest and intelligent jury brings in
verdict of guilty of murder in the first
degree, there are always plenty Of open.
ings for exception and appeal, and the APP
pellate Court can apparently be counted on
to remand murder case upon the most re.
fined technicalities, at any time.
Or a change of venue is sought, and
when the case is once more tried, far away
from the scene of the murder, the long con-
finement of the defendant is skillfully
urged as a reason for not furnishing MIN
any more. Thus in the first place we find
that imprisonment is courted by muir
derers as means Of escape from justice,
and in the next place this means of eva
sion is employed to secure their enfran-
chisement. So boldly and unscrupulously
have the laws been used to defeat the
primary purposes of their enactment, that
it is no exaggeration to say that chang
ing is played out" in this State. Execu.
tions there are occasionally, but with rare
exceptions they are confined to friendless
criminals or to foreigners. 1t is possible
to convict Chinaman or a Mexican of
murder, but if what is called "white I"
murderer has friends and means, we say it
deliberately that he can ia California afford
to snap his fingers at the laws. The petty
thief is tolerably certain to be convicted.
Juries can be found to declare robbery
(sometimes), and forgery and embezzle-
ment and burglary, criminal. But when
convicted murderer has only to provide
the usual means of defense, and he can
count upon suffering no more serious in.
convenience than year or two of modified
and ameliorated confinement in a County
Jail.
This ia what we have come to in the
matter of criminal administration. The
case which has just been closed by 80
monstrous defeat Of justice was
peculiarly aggravated one, and it was one
in which the people might have been sup
posed to be specially interested. The
murdered man was an editor. The muir
derer was man of bad reputation. This
man of bad reputation nevertheless sought
an Office of responsibility an office in
which his previous record must have dis.
qualified him for the proper discharge of
his official duties. Acting solely in the in
terest of the public, Theodore Clancy
showed, in his paper, why Gray ought
not to be elected to the Office he sought.
Upon this Gray proceeded to vindicate
Glancey's structures by committing MUIR
der. Clancy was brave man, but he
never carried weapons. Gray met him On
the street, and sho5 him. 1t was an as.
sassination of the most ruffianly and
brutal character. Gray represented the
lawless and violent elements, and Clancy
stood for the law-abiding and respectable
elements. Clancy was within the strict
limits of his public duty in pointing out
Gray's unftness for the Office he sought.
Gray, in meeting that criticism by muir.
der, was only proving to the public that
his victim had been justified in all he pub.
lished.
At the time of the murder it created
much Indignation. At. that time Gray's
neck seemed in danger. 1t appeared prob.
able that for once justice would be done.
But all such hopes proved vain and illusory.
The first trial resulted in verdict Of guilty..
but it was set aside upon what we can
only characterize as extraordinary grounds,
and now the usual California outcome ends
the case by setting the assassin free, and
by publishing in effect, to all the world,
that here Is State of the Union in which
murder is regarded as a venial affair so
venial, in fact, that ordinary juries cannot
be got to regard it as more than pecca.
dillo, or amiable weakness, amply atoned
for by few months of Imprisonment.
And there is another lesson in this case, a
lesson which journalists will do well to
profit by. 1t is this that when an editor
finds it necessary, in the line OF his public
duty, to denounce some notorious scoundrsl
or rutfian, he must at once arm himself.
and should the object of his censure pre-
sent himself at the editorial rooms to de
mand retraction, he must instantly kill
the person. By SO doing he will not only
save himself from assassination, but he
will obtain presently certificate from
twelve of his fellow.citizens to the i'm.
macula.c purity of his character, and at
the same time bullies and swashbucklers
will learn to keep at respectful distance
from journalists, even when the latter tell
the truth about them.
Theodore Clancy was a manly, upright,
philosophical journalist. He was foully
murdered for the honest performance of his
plain and undoubted duty. And now, af-