Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1901-04-05

venge, Z very usual motive II murder.
Reatty's plan ~ to kill Nine and he
prepared himself to do 60 with married
sedAteness.
For Beattyss awful crime the jury
visited upon him the severest punish
ment known to the law; the court APP
proved that verdict and We see no rea-
o upon which to base e recommends
ton that the Governor commute the
sentence.
1t may he we'll to discuss as briefly
as possible the 8 given in the
papers in this case as to why execu-
tive clemency should be exercised.
Granted that q heinous crime has been
committed. can former good conduct
be urged as any excuse for it? A
mans former good conduct might be
used and frequently is successfully SO,
to show at least a reasonable doubt
of his being the criminal he is charged
with being. In this case there is not
the slightest effort made to attach in
any way the fact that a willful, de-
liberate, ~premeditated murder was
committed.
Nh. Beatty did not go on the witness
stand to explain in any way why he
murdered Mine. but seems to have re-
lied upon his trial, as he does largely
now on his former good life to reduce
tine punishment, he had incurred, from
death to life Imprisonment. II the
doctrine were once established. that
even a long line of noble deeds would
mitigate or set aside the penalty for
heinous, cruel and deadly crime, then
no man who had lead a life of recti-
tude preceding the commission of such,
could ever be punished to the full ex-
tent OF the law. Beside the jury be-
fore whom Beatty was tried were the
better Judges of what he deserved in
the matter OF leniency, and they made
no recommendation to the court to en-
able it to inflict less than a death pen
atty. This crime of which we read in
the record of this case, viewed from a
judicial standpoint, looks even black
er, If possible, to us than it could have
appeared to lhe jury.
Again, it is urged that there was
great pr~ovocation for Beatty to COM
NIT the crime. There was no provo
cation whatever, so far as is disclosed
either in morals or law. That which
is claimed as provocation, is that
young Beatty, who is now serving a
term in the penitentiary for felony,
was arrested on a warrant sworn out
by the murdered man, his uncle, on a
charge of breaking into the latter's
cellar and stealing some cider. Mr..
Nine had a perfect right to act as he
pleased in that matter. 1t Is as cred
liable to seek to punish a relation for
a crime, or possibly nor SO, as it is
a stranger. When justice shall end
and mercy begin is exclusively a mat
ter for a mans own conscience in such
cases. Some men would administer
personal chastisement, and perhaps
bring on crime, and thus pro-
woke the common cry and criticism,
that the law is the proper remedy and
should be sought; Others would pursue
the course that Nine did, and still
others would forgive and shield the
criminal. All this opens a vast field
for surmise and discussion. but it is
entirely useless to enter into it, as
the arrest of young Beatty by Mr..
Nine, as we view it, is entirely imma-
terial to J.. w. Beatty's case, and has
nothing to do with it, nor had it in
the trial before the jury, except for the
n sole purpose of showing what was
the motive that Influenced the muir
derer.
Finally, as to the petitions and let
tiers that accompany this case, it may
be said in the first, that they are
about as weighty against executive
clemency as they are for it. 1t takes
a good deal of moral courage to ask
for the execution of the death penalty,
--hsI4 1@ {nnIa,. 80 fhA hntr q ~ y n .f
that it is easy to petition against 1t.
So the two hundred and thirteen names
on n side, might possibly be claim
ed to weigh as much as the eight hun
dred OF sc on the other.
The petitions on behalf of Beatty
are affecting and some of the letters
are very touching. The extreme sao-
ness of the consequence in this case are
that this is no such crime as that OF
betrayal and it is %eloquently claimed
some robber striking down his victim
in death. But the effects of all kinds
of crime are ~deplorable; and why is
not the murder of an inoffensive man
who is defenseless and even a%pprehen-
sive of attack, after deliberation, I'M
der the most cruel circumstances, and
with such determination by the MUIR
derer that he even kept on firing after
his victim was down with a fatal
wound. All this from the motive of
revenge recognized since the first
tragedy written in blood, as one OF the
most deadly and most powerful that
animates the slayer of his fellow-be-
ing, as heinous as any Of which the
human minds could well conceive?
But the pertinent question in this con-
nection is, supposing that we make up
our minds from the record that Beatty
was guilty of such a crime as deserves
the death penalty, nothing new be-
ing shown, should petition move us
from the discharge of our duty as we
view it? Suppose all of Preston coun-
ty, or of the State, for the matter of
that. could have asked the jury which
| sat in Beatty's case, to be lenient with
him because of his former excellent
conduct, because of the sad conse-
ouences following his deed and because
his crime was not that of bloodshed
while committing robbery, should that
jury have been moved from what it
thought was right? 1t seems to us
that the answer and deduction are so
plain. that they end this matter, and
leaves us in the same attitude in which
the jury stood.
We therefore recommend that the
Governor refuse to interfere in this
case.