Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-12-27

subjects each defendant on his trial to a
severe examination, and woe to him il he
cannot tell clear storyl Before that be is
subjected to a process which seems peculi-
arly repugnant to our ideas of criminal JUS
tice, in the shape of an official and private
examination. This is the function ofa ju-
dicial official, whose time aud talents are
devoted exclusively to that work. Until
the prisoner is examined by the Juge d'fn-
struction he cannot even consult with the
lawyer who is to defend him. If he has not
made eliminating admissions to the police
officers vino arrested him. be may be con-
fused and browbeaten by the Juge din
structioB into admitting his guilt. On the
other hand, it is no doubt possible that the
investigation of the case by this official will
result in establishing his innocence without
trial. But it is nevertheless true that,
from first to last, prisoner before the
the French courts is in very different posi-
tion than the one he would occupy before
the English.
This difference in method is not mere
freak OF French justice. 1t is fact
that the French courts approach their
work with a different conception of
their purpose. Crabbe Robinson says
in his journal: 81 should wish to
be tried in England. if guilty-if innocent,
in France" This is an extreme approval of
the French system, inasmuch as it expresses
the unfounded idea that the innocent de-
fendant has better chance under the
French than under the English methods.
There is more accuracy in Southey's COM
mentary on that remark: "The English
system seems to have for its object that no
innocent person should unjustly be found
guilty; the French system that no criminal
should escape" The same idea is expressed
in another way by the English maxim:
that it is better for ten guilty men to escape
rather than one innocent should suffer pun
ishment; while the basis of French methods
is clearly the idea that the individual pro-
lection of the one innocent man is of less
vital Importance than the protection Of So
ciety from the ten criminals.
The results are as illustrated in the recent
famous trials, that while in England and
the United States it is often difficult to con-
vict criminal, in France it may sometimes
60 hard with an innocent man under
suspicious circumstances. While the
spectacle of a judge indulging in
catechising prisoner in a way
which no Anglo-Saxon judge would dare to
copy, since Jefrey's time, seems especially
repugnant to us, there are some respects in
which the French system is not without its
merits. 1t would be impossible in France
for the spectacle to be presented of witnesses
rescuing prisoner from conviction by re-
fusing to testify, and then the prisoner as
a lawyer turning around when released and
pushing legal proceedings to free the wit
nesses from imprisonment for contempt OF
court, which is one of the phenomena of our
judicial methods just afforded to the public
gaze in this State of Pennsylvania.
While no thoughtful man would wish to
see the French methods of bounding pris-
oner into admissions of guilt adopted in this
country, it is susceptible of debate whether
a medium between the two systems might not
be more conducive of actual justice than
either. The rule that witnesses need not
criminats themselves, which comes down
from the dark ages, when it was necessary
to protect the unfortunate against having
admissions of guilt wrung from them by
torture, is one that appears susceptible of
decided modification. Beyond that it is
quite possible that the effectiveness of our
criminal justice might be enhanced by
general change in the direction of paying
less attention to form and more to the work
of arriving at the facts of the case by any
means that may present themselves.