The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1884-01-17

! against all tneSe arrangements OF
law, and against the regular plea of
insanity, and against the chance Of the
moral enfeeblement of even a single
juror, who has been demoralized by
immunity to murderers until he thinks
the capital execution Of one a dread
full thing. and against all the other
network Of distractions that environ
trial for a great crime, there follows
a stay of execution to apply for new
trial, Oh some alleged informality, Or
error in a ruling Of the Court. This
ties the case up for year, or two, or
three, in which the william lives idly at
the public cost.
To object to ruling Of the Court,
is as easy as lying. An expert crimi-
nal lawyer is expert in multiplying
lateral questions Of law, which the
Court has to decide off-hand, with the
purpose Of finding in some Of these
rulings a technical flaw. At length
the question Of error reaches the Su-
preme Court Does that Court look
into the trial to see that justice has
been done? No; justice is not held to
be the end of law. 1t goes through
all the record in mousing way to
find any informality in any part of the
proceeding, or any technical error i'll
ruling, although neither has any bear
ing on the justice of the case. Thus
the Courts strangle the law in its own
sinuosities, and make its end the pro-
lection of the guilty.
The alleged informalities run SO
small as to defect in the summoning
of a juror, or in his residence or citi-
zenship-to a technical defect, having
no bearing on the completeness of the
trial, and which may have been known
from the beginning, and contrived for
this trick And for such immaterial
defects the Supreme Court will set
aside the verdict. and order the case
tried over More than half the time
of the Supreme Court is taken in this
mousing search for technical errors in
applications to set aside just verdicts
in criminal cases. Judiciary amend
ments are framed and adopted to pro-
pagate this judicial impotency and
immortality.
By this time all the friends of the
murderer, or the outraged and her
friends, have despaired of justice.
They have seen that the law is only a
protector of crime Probably they
have in addition been harried by at
tendance at Courts as witnesses, and
maltreated there. The outraged COM
munity has become disgusted, and re-
CARDS the Courts as in league with
crime. Criminals find no terrors in
such administration Of law. Can any
rational person think it hard to account
for the increase Of atrocious crimes,
when the Courts have thus strangled
the law? Can they wonder that Judge
Lynch is the only real administrator
of law?
That this abandonment is not ne
cessity of judicial practice. is shown
by the different course in the English
Courts, under essentially the same laws
and rules. Capable Judges there, fur
ther removed from the political in
fuence of the criminal classes, confne
the testimony to the case. Attorneys
are not allowed to spread out single
case for weeks upon weeks, with ir-
relevant matter Some principles Of
law are adjudicated, and both the bench
and the bar know them. The trade
of the criminal lawyer is not there the
chief part of the Court. The Courts
regard the conviction Of the guilty,
and not his acquittal, as their office.
Attorneys accustomed to the immo-
raj practice of our Courts III criminal
cases, could hardly understand how
the Judge, in the trial Of the assassin
O'Donnell. could refuse new trial
when one was asked, and could do this
for the reason that fair trial had
been had, and that the verdict was
justified by the evidence, and justice
had been done. Our attorneys sup
posed that the proper sequence of d
capital crime was a new trial. They
We're dumfounded at the English idea
that Courts are to administer justice,
and that when a murderer has been
it is the end Of the law.
Can rational beings ask any better
reason for the increase of brutal crimes
than the notorious fact that our ad-
of law protects the Grim
mails? Can they wonder that little
girls on their way from school are en-
iced OF carried by ruffians into dens
or lonely bottoms and ravished, when
5he Courts nurse them, and outlaw all
hat demand their punishment? eau
hey wonder that in this city human
ife is so cheap, and the law so far
rom terror, that employees in livery
stable, associating as fellow-workmen
With their employer, deliberately plan
% knock him in the head with a ham
ner, in broad daylight, to get what
money he has in his pocket, to spend
n mere indulgence2 Can they won
ler that when the administration Of
aw has abolished justice, the com
nunity should have increasing respect
eor that spontaneous court of the
whose justice is prompt and
sure? S. r. r.