Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1884-04-03
The Cincinnati Riot.

shed are the results of the outrageous
verdict rendered by the jury in the
Berner case. The trial of VIM. Berner,
for the murder of Hart, closed at Gin
cinnati on Monday previous, by the
jury rendering verdict of manslaught-
er. The verdict was received with
Kisses and as the jury left the court
room they were jeered with cries of
chang the jury" Berner and negro
killed Hart in his stable for his money
and then hauled his body to the out
skirts of the city and threw it OH the
bank of creek. There was no doubt
of the guilt of Berner.
The citizens became so incensed at
the outrageous verdict that n meeting
was called for Music Hall on Friday
evening, to show their contempt for the
judicial farce enacted in the Berner
case, and to condemn the manner in
which justice was frustrated in the
courts of that city. The meeting was
largely attended and the indignation of
the audience was aroused to fever heat,
and it was at the close of this meeting
that the proceedings eliminated in a
riot participated in by thousands.
This outbreak in Cincinnati is not a
matter of merely local concern. 1t
springs from a cause of general opera
ton. 1t is a consequence of a flagrant
miscarriage of justice, and both the
cause and its effect are growing COM
mon throughout the country to an eX-
tent that may well cause alarm and az
rest attention. The failure to bring
murderers to punishment has become
so general and so gross as to call in
question the efficacy of our criminal ad-
ministration and to sound warning to
the whole nation.
1t is startling fact that escape of
murderers from a penalty of the law is
the rule and conviction the exception.
A writer in the current number of the
| Century has collected statistics showing
that more than fifteen hundred muir
ders were committed in the United
States last year, while the number Of
legal executions was only ninety-three.
One year affords but an representative
ratio of hangings to murderers. But
the same writer reaches the general con-
clusion that the number of yearly muir
ders to the country is thirteen. or four
teen hundred and the number of exc
cution less thah one hundred. In other
words, out of every fourteen murders
only one suffers the extreme penalty of
the law and thirteen escape the gallows.
Another most significant fact reported
by the same authority is that in 1888
the lynchings in the United States out
numbered the legal executions by twen-
ty-five per cent-there being hundred
and twenty-five of the former and nine
ty-three of the latter.
In speaking upon the subject the New
York Herald says these are startling
facts. They show an alarming defect
in our criminal system, and suggest the
inquiry whether our laws for the pun
ishment of murderers and the preven-
ton of murder are not made or admin
istered in behalf of criminals rather
than in the interest of society. There
is no question that these laws are far
more favorable to the prisoner than to
the people. 1t is much easier for the
defense to escape than it is for the pros
ecution to secure conviction. The theo-
ry of this is that every reasonable safe
guard should be thrown around inno-
cent accused. But what is intended as
a protection for the innocent has be-
come in the hands of sharp, ingenious
and oftentimes unscrupulous criminal
lawyers q means for effecting the es-
cape of the guilty.
Ofall abuses in our criminal admin
istration the most common as we'll as
the most fragrant are the fruits of the
existing jury system. In nine murder
cases out of ten the jury, as is amply
proved by experience, is simply body
organized in the interest of criminals.
At every state, from the summoning of
the jurors to the rendering of the ver-
dict, the prisoner has advantages and
opportunities from which the State is
cut off In the Cincinnati trial, for in
stance, the defence had five times as
many peremptory challenges as the
prosecution, and while the prosecutor
stood alone during the trial five of the
best criminal lawyers at the bar ap-
peared for the prisoner. But making
every due allowance for all legitimate
advantages enjoyed by the accused and
every undue advantage which is Sc
cured for him by sharp practice, cases
are notoriously common in which the
jurors deliberately and wilfully side
with the prisoner out of sympathy with
him or through Indifference to the
claims of society and acquit him against
the evidence and in violation of their
oaths. The outrageous acquittal of
Dukes, the surprising verdict of the
Cincinnati jury in the Burner case and
the fragrant results of other recent Grim
inal trials can be explained only on this
theory.