The St. Johns herald., 1891-03-19
Wealthy Criminals.

How far ought wealth to be al
 lowed to protect criminals? Is il
 sound policy and good morals tc
 continue a asystem of criminal court
 administration which makes an inn
 mense difference in favor of the
 rich malefactor? These are very
 practical and important questions. Everybody knows that as things go now 1t is almost impossible to pun ish a wealthy man to the full extent of the law. Let two citizens of any State, one a poor man and the oth- CT a millionaire, commit exactly the same crime, and though their past lives may be equally honorable and clean their chances of escape from punishment will be very different, There is much foundation for the popular belief that very rich man could commit an atrocious murder without the least risk of the gallows. Nothing could be more hateful to honest men or more demoralizing to society than such feeling based on facts as patent as they are ugly. The remedy must be sought in one way alone, if it is to be effective. As long as every man accused of crime is permitted to spend as much money as he chooses in his own de- fense the advantage of the rich over the poor is certain to exist. Law yers, tempted by great fees, will make a speciality of clearing veal thy criminals by every trick that ingenuity can devise. They will bribe juries hire witnesses by whole sale, dodge and twist until the pros ecution loses its yigor or until it's witnesses die, and in some manner their clients can be wholly cleared, or, at least, saved from heavy pen allies. The poor prisoner has no such resources. He is given a fair defense at the public cost, but that is all. It is all that any man ac- cused of crime is justly entitled to- No citizen of country like the United States has a valid moral claim 10 better defense than the poorest of his fellow-men is assured in any prosecution by the State. The work of criminal lawyers who get huge fees for clearing guilty men is contrary to public interests and to sound principles of morality, IL is in the nature of shielding crime and multiplying offences against the laws. The way to put an end to it is to have counsel assigned by the court to every defendant in a criminal case and paid out of the public treasury, the fees of the at torney to be collected, like other costs, from the criminal, whenever possible, in all cases of conviction. This would not very greatly increase the expense to the taxpayers of maintaining the criminal courts. There might be no increase at all. What was lost in attorneys fees would be very likely to be gained in the enormous reduction of costs in protracted cases fought for years by criminals with plenty of money. But be the extra burden of taxa ton much or little, the people could afford it for the sake of knowing that in the courts of justice the rich and poor were on the same footing and that one mans chance of es- cape from the just penalty of of fense was no better than that of his neighbor. The community would be spared the scandalous spectacle of wealth intrenched behind a great array of legal talent defying the penalties of the low which no poor man could hope to violate with inn punity. The greatest need of the republic to-day is more perfect equality in rights and privileges be- tween the various classes of it's citi
 zens. Its dangers lie in the drift toward special powers and immun- itins for the rich and bitter discon-