Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1885-05-25
TIE BURNs-REYNoLDs TRIALS.

And 50 it has been legally determined
that no one is guilty of embezzling money
of the State from the fee funds of the Sec
rotary of States Office during the late ad-
ministration. Burns, the principal, was
charged and acquitted by one jury, that
trial throwing the blame and guilt upon
Reynolds, the deputy. Now Reynolds has
been tried and acquitted-hiS defense be
ing direct charge Of dishonesty against
Ills principal. Two juries have, therefore
declared neither man is guilty. But sup
pose that both men had been tried before
the same jury, and the same defenses had
been set up, would it probably have re
suited in that jury fixing the guilt upon
either? Probably not; such doubt
would have been raised as to the guilt Of
either, that the Jury would have convicted
neither. There is no question whatever
but that public funds were distracted from
fees paid into the Office OF the Secretary of
State. No one charges anyone else with
tried. Both men entered the Office with
unblemished reputations-both are sent
out Of Court with the doubt in the public
mind as to which was guilty of malfeas-
ance in Office, fortified by the verdict of
jurles Of the country. 1t will not do to
charge this failure to fix guilt, this fastening
a stigma upon two regulations, to the fail
ure Of our system of justice 1t simply
proves the incapacity of man to evolve
the truth at all times. His system Of jus
tee cannot rise higher than his own capaci-
~. These cases aren without their paral-
lels. Hundreds Of instances are of record in
which the law, by its mcrciful interposi-
ton Of doubt, has failed to reach guilt,
though 1t was certain that guilt was ut the
bar Of the law in the person of one Of
number charged with crime. Very re-
Gently, upon the criminal side of the same
Court that tried Burns and Reynolds. there
were parallels to those cases. Mrs. Troai
was murdered. Of that there was moral
and physical certainty. The woman met
her death by violence So. too it is GER
tain that either her husband, Troai, or his
Heretofore friend, Lentini. killed Mrs
Troai. Both men were tried for the crime.
and both, by separate ,uries. acquitted
because Of the doubt In The Burns
Reynolds cases it is not known to what ex-
tent the doubt entered into the verdict Of
either jury. In the Burns case there was
as much of positiyeness Of innocence in
the declaration Of the verdict rs in any or
binary finding upon criminal charge. In
the Reynolds case, the same characteristic
marked the verdict. Yet it Is certain thai
the clearance of both men hinges, when
the cases are taken together, upon the |
doubt. Still, the friends of each claim thai
proof positive Of his innocence was adj !
duced. 1t is failure of justice that both /
should have been acquitted, since one or
the other must be guilty and vet. in
another sense, it is a vindication of the
system of justice that a conviction shall
not be had without such certainty of guilt
as viii fortify the law in inficting punish
ment. 1t is better, and the cool thought
of men will indorse the expression, that
the guilty man, whichever he may be, shall