Arizona weekly journal-miner., 1895-06-26

Murderer John Foster has been
 granted a parole from the Penlten-
 tiarv after serving a few months
 there. At the same time that he
 was paroled five other convicted
 felons were pardoned. Thus it is that thousands of dollars of the tax payers money are annually ex- pended on our courts, in efforts to obtain the punishment of criminals, and the man who is unfortunate | enough to miss being tried by sympathetic jury is turned loose on ! the community again by a sym pathetic governor. The JOURNAL MINER has always been friendly tC- wards Governor Hughes, because his administration has generally been such as to merit commenda- ton. Its friendship however is not
 of that intense and blinded nature that it can not see his official faults, one of which is his abuse of the
 pardoning power. The freeing of notorious criminals will remain as
 one dark page at least in the history
 of Governor Hughes administration.
 There are occasional cases where
 the interests of justice are not
 injured by the exercise of executive
 clemency, but this prerogative of
 the chief executive has time and
 again been exercised to the detr .
 ment of the best interests of the
 territory. The crime for which
 John Foster was convicted was an
 atrocious one. After shooting his
 inofensive victim in his own saloon,
 Foster walked over the dead body
 body of the sheep herder dispensing
 whisky to patrons of his place. In
 face of all the most damaging
 evidence against him jury recom-
 mended him to the mercy of the
 court despite the fact that there
 was not a scintilla of evidence, of any mitigating circumstances connected with it, and despite the fact that he
 shot his victim down without mercy or warning. Because of this rec ommendation he was sentenced for
 life. Now, in two years or less, he l is turned loose again, not only as a menace to society himself, but as an
 encouragement to others to commit crime, in the firm belief that if by
 any chance a jury might find them
 guilty the governor will pardon them soon anyway. Among the } others turned loose by Governor
 Hughes at the same time was man convicted of burglary in 1891 and sentenced to fourteen years m the penitentiary. He has served four.
 What travesty of justice this is!
 A murderer under a life sentence turned out in two years or less! 4 burglar under fourteen years ser tence released in four! Of what use
 are our courts if one man can over , turn the whole proceedings ofthemi
 Why not abolish them and save the money expended on themi Why not legalize crime by imposing a
 license on it and thereby make it
 revenue producing rather than bui- densome to taxpayers! Let the
 individual mete out punishment as
 best suits him to the tresspasser on his rights. This would be no more
 a farce than the present practice of
 psrdoning criminals just as soon as they are safely landed in tLe
 prison. The JoURNAL-MDER has
 beeen reliably informed that the average term served of parties sen tenced for life in the penitentiary has been about four years Past
 experience teaches, that if the rights
 to life and property are to be
 respected in the future state of Arizona, its constitution must con- tain better safe guards and more protection from its chief executive than is vouchsafed to the people , under the present organic act.