Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-06-21
PROTECTING THE INNOCENT.

The recent discovery that a convict in
the state penitentiary at Deer Lodge is
Enthusiastically innocent of the crime
charged against him, furnishes a lesson
not be too thoroughly learned by those
who a within their hands the lives and
liberties of men. The details of the cir
cunstances under which this innocent
man was consigned to a living death. and
the incidents that accidentally lead up to
the establishing of his innocence. are of
centers in the fact that an innocent man
was incarcerated for a crime. and that he
would have served out his term and gone
forth into the world branded as a GRIM
inal, and robbed of the precious heritage
of good repute among men. had not mere
chance made it possible for him to rescue
himself from disgrace.
1t indicates the horrible possibility that
other men, to whom nance is more UNI
kind, may be unjustly suffering the
penalties for crimes they did not COM
nit. Public sentiment, stimulated by the
press, seldom hesitates in expressing con-
demnation when men charged with crime
that an innocent man may have been
convicted is not entertained by the busy
world. The fact that an innocent man
is occasionally discovered within the
walls of a prison proves the possibility
that others are confined there, and hat
the machinery of the law is quite as COM
as in another. when weighing the merits
of a criminal charge.
While it is the theory of the law to give
to the person accused of crime the bene-
fit of the doubt it often happens that he
is wholly robbed of this safeguard
through the system pursued by the court.
If unable to employ a competent attorney
to defend him the court assumes this
duty, and in a great majority of instances
gives the job to some fledgling Of the law,
whose limited practice makes him hungry
for the opportunity to earn a fee practic-
ing on the life or liberty of his poverty
stricken client.
Against the prisoner appears the coun-
ty attorney, usually a man of superior
| abilities and we'll versed in the kinks and
o,,r1in,,ac or tho cr;p,ino1 low, IF tho nriS-
oner himself be as verdant as his pro-
fessional defender. half his rights are
never claimed and the other half are so
badly d%isfigured as to earn the contempt
of both judge and jury. The chances are
he goes to the penitentiary, and if the
tickle goddess of coed luck withllolds her
smiles he serves his term out, and his in
nocence is recognized by no one but his
God II his broken heart. B..
A reform in the practice of our GRIM
inal courts would serve well the ends of
justice, insofar as the appointing Of at
torneys for the defense of alleged Grimm
ais is concerned. On general principles,
the prisoner is entitled to a defender who
is properly equipped with cerebral en-
ergy and a knowledge of the law to pro-
tect him from an unwarranted convic-
ton.
A large number Of men. p%ardoned from
time to time from the penitentiary, re-
ceive executive clemency on account OF
the fact that they We're not given the ad'
vantages which the law contemplated
when tried and convicted of crime. II
such cases there is always a strong pre-
sumption of innocence, when earnestly
insisted upon by the convict under cir
cumstances that lend an air of proba
bility to the claim. Guilty men are some
times made the beneficiaries of sucl
clemency, as well as the innocent, provin:
the general desirability Of according tt
a man on trial as good a defense as tn
circumstances will allow. 1t were bette
= that a dozen guilty men escape punish
ment than that one man be consigned t.
the pen~itentiary when guiltless of an!
offence against the law. 2
Like q flower in the garden of human.