The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1888-06-22
CRIMINAL LAW PRACTICE.
MY Assixe Sermon to Judges Oh APP
monczuded from last ueek.)

CRIMINAL Law EnAVsASD' 1
NV Assixe Sermon to theJ judges OF APPe"''
Concluded from last soeek)
At the present moment, pardon me oneo
more. Honorable Sirs, 1 speak more IN re-
spect for than in derogation of your hign
office. more in sorrow than in anger most
of you, o Honorable Gentlemen OF tne al.
pellate Courts, if your acts mean anytnlne ~
believe it better to arrive at an UNJUST
by means theoretically correct' tn"n
to arrive at q righteous decision by lmper1ec'
means.
Do you deny this, Honorable sirs? 1do
not think you can. Your decisions are In
print. I have been a close student of them
for many years. Had I not read them u
the care 1 have I should not have taken his
for my Assize Sermon, and L would
not have known just how the failure of the
criminal law in this land has come about. In
every volume of your reports I find some
proof of what I have charged. But a more
striking proof it has been my lot to receive.
Yesterday, as 1 hurried through the crowded
street, I passed q group OF men. l turned
my head; it struck me that I had seen them
before. Another look was sufficient. I had
seen them but a few months ago in the city
Jail, every one of them under conviction for
a foul and brutal murder. Why were they
at large, thought I. Then 1 determined to
ask them, and ran after them. "How came
you here, Mr.. Rufian?" said I. "The Su-
preme Court let me off, because the clerk
spelled breast in my Indictment, brest."
"And you, Murderer" "My indictment
said the fellow / shot did instantly die, but
the Supreme Court said it should have been
did then ard there die" "And you, Cut
throat?." "One of the subp9nas had no seal
on it," "And you, Assassin" The prose-
cutting attorney on my trial asked one of my
witnesses if she had ever been in the peni.
Tertiary" "And you, Manslayer?" 1.-THE
Judge who tried me read the law to the jury
instead of writing it down." "And you,
Garroter?" 1.-THE jury didn't spell the YER
dict r%ight-they left out a letter." "And
you, Malefactor?" s'The Supreme Court said
I had a right to be in court when I was SEN
fenced" "And were you not?" ooh, yes;
but the clerk forgot to mention it in the
record, and the court could not condescend
to ask him." Had the men lied to me?. Oh,
no. Last night I found their cases in the
reports. They had spoken truly. And your
names, 0 Honorable Gentlemen, were all
there sometimes you delivered the opin-
ion" sometimes you "concurred, OCCASION
ally you ssdissented," but the criminal was
always triumphant, and justice was always
overthrown. ..
The result of such decisions as these, O
Gentlemen of the Appellate Courts, has been
to spread among the criminal classes a deep
rooted feeling that you, Honorable Sirs, are
their friends and exist for their protection.
They have learned that to be convicted by a
matters of small importance. They have
seen scores of their pals sentenced with all
the forms of the law to be hanged on a Ger
tain day, but the Oldest among them cannu
remember an instance of the sentence being
carried out on that day. They are not
learned in law phrase ology, they know little
about supersedeas or habeas corpus, writs of
error and the like, but this they do know,
and it is enough for them, that there is high
er and a greater power than that which con-
fronts them with their crimes and adjudges
Ln6lE l)uUlSuuGuts 1ley udV0 o0Cn eudt tulo
power can always be depended on to stay
the day of doom. It steps between them
and the gallows even when they have
reached its foot. Thus the murderer comes
to have great faith in you, o Honorable
Gentlemen of the Appellate Courts. The
trial court he detests. There are the wit
nesses who saw him commit the foul deed;
there are the relatives of his victim; the
widow, whose protector can never return to
her; the children calling in vain for their
father. There is the Judge, before whose
stern and searching eye he quails; the jury
whose verdict he anticipates without hope.
As he confronts the crowded court room, he
feels that there is not a soul there who does
not think him guilty and wish to see him
punished. But he knows, o Honorable Sirs,
that you will not see him; he is glad of that,
and he %rejoices, too, as he remembers that
you will not even try whether he is guilty,
as the jury are doing, for if you should he
would despair. No; he understands that
what you will do will be to ascertain
whether the lawyers have not asked too
many questions or said too many things in
their speeches, or whether the judge has not
given a wrong definition to a word, or
whether the clerk has not made a mistake in
m%oistening the official seal of the court with
a sponge instead Of following the old and
we'll established practice of licking it with
his tongue. He hears the verdict of equity, -
and the sentence of the judg e that he is to be
hanged by the neck until he is dead, with
Indifference; he goes back to his cell feeling
quite comfortable, and does not lose an
hours rest that night. His faith is justified,
message comes from you: "Reversed and re-.
manded for a new trial"
Wake IN, o Honorable Sirs. Engaged in
solving judicial puzzles put before you by
acute and tricky lawyers, you are forgetting
society and the public veal. Clicked with
your own food you are sitting speeches. and
inane. But arise, for in the background ]
see Judge Lynch preparing to turn you all
out of doors.
I know, O Honorable Sirs, that you are
honest men; to the credit of our American
judiciary, be it said that the hands of GU,
judges are clean; we have had few Maccles.
fields, we have had no Bacons. I know too
that on principle you desire to punish crime
oU1 yOuI tI1lAluk dL tu0 U6E has maze YOU
ready to look at procedure and to miss the
right of the case. AS I cast my eyes over my
congregation, l see a few of you-your hail
is very white and your number is small-who
I remember very we'll fought hard, very
hard, against the reform of the procedure in
civil cases. You declared that the old system
was q scientific one, and if it did cost the
sutton more money and more time. il WAC a
beautiful contest-that old special pleading
which only a great man could successfully
conduct But common sense prevailed, and
the men that are sorry it did are now 1 think
nearly all in the church yard. I want to ask
you a question. If the people should abolish
the technicalities which I have declared de.
lay and obstruct criminal justice, would you
help them to carry out the reform? [ really
believe most of you would. But for you,
Honorable Gentlemen of the Anna1la+o