The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1902-07-10
The Higher Law
of Public Opinion.

papers are devOting great deal
of space to criminal cases, and
some of the views of the law
they enunciate are remarkable. One
editorial, commenting on a recent con-
victiOn, says: "1t is no less true that
the higher law of public opinion will
find ways to reach ends on which it has
set it's heart outside of the narrow
technical channels of ordinary legal pro-
cedure when these obstruct what It
considers justice. The highest courts
remain to put proper check on this
direct exercise of the popular will, when
the people are carried away by passion
or infamed by prejudice"
Does this mean that it is a common
practice for judges and jurors to will
fully perjure themselves? Every Judge
is sworn to administer the law as it has
been previously determined, and every
juror takes an oath that he has not
formed any opinion whatever in regard
to the case, and from the moment he is
accepted as juror he is kept from all
communication with the outside world
in respect to all matters that have any
bearing on the case, except such evil
dence as is placed before the court.
In the absence of perjury, how then
can public opinion reach the jury whose
duty it is to decide the guilt or inno-
cence of the accused?
What is this Higher Law and in what
respect is it higher or better than that
already determined for use in the
courts?
All the great writer's on the subject
concur in the belief that by far the
most necessary of all the desiderata for
code of law, and more especially for
the penal portion of it, is that it's rules
are easily understood and clearly de-
fined. Certainly it can not be said that
public opinion complies with this re-
quirement. For upwards of two thou
sand years the brightest intellects of
several nations have been at work COM
piling system of rules of evidence and
procedure which they have considered
indispensable to the proper administra-
tion of justice. Are the opinions of
experts who have devoted their lives to
the calm study of the underlying prin-
ciples to be overridden by hot-headed
enthusiasts whose mood would be just
as we'll suited by an appeal to Judge
Lynch?
It is just such articles as this that in
spire the idea in ordinary and con-
scientiOus mems minds that the fact of
a man having been indicted by grand
jury is almost conclusive evidence that
a crime has beeI committed and that
the accused il nost likely the
perpetrator; and if they are sum-
moned as jurors they feel bound to
convict the accused of some crime; but
when their consciences will not allow
them to find him guilty of the crime
charged they compromise matters by
convicting in lower degree and tiatter
themselves that by so doing they have
satisfied both, parties. AS for the
check to be exercised by the higher
courts, it is true they have this power
but it is most vicious policy to instill
into the lower courts that they should
knowingly decide cases contrary to law,
leaving it to the, higher court to set
matters right for this is equivalent to
saying there shall be one law for one
class and another for another class, for
one class is so situated that it cannot
appeal and has to bear the penalty
knowing full well that the law has.
been broken by the very persons whose
duty it is to see that it is obeyed.