The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-12-11
sHERIFFs AND THE ANTI-LYNCHING

Ex-Sheriff Dudley, of Sullivan county, is
unfortunate in furnishing the first case
arising under the anti-lynching law of 1901.
The law is a drastic one in that ii makes
the lynching of a person taken by mob
from the hands of sheriff conclusive evil
dence of failure on the part of such sheriff
TO do his duty, and his office shall thereby
and thereat Immediately be vacated. and
the coroner shall Immediately succeed to
and perform the duties of sheriff until the
successor shall have been duly appointed.
and such sheriff shall not thereafter be
to the Office of sheriff" The sheriff. how
ever. Is given ten days i'm which to file with
the Governor his petition for reinstatement
to office and the right to submit evidence
in support of it. The new law only re-
moves the sheriff from Office if a prisoner
taken from his hands be subsequently
lynched. No such penalty attaches to the
escape of a prisoner, which is not an un-
common occurrence, nor would it attach in
the case of a prisoner taken from the hands
of sheriff by mob. unless the person
were lynched.
The law was directed especially at the
crime of lynching and at the supposed
slack performance of duty by sheriffs in de-
Tending prisoners against mobs. There
could hardly be a higher crime on the part
of a sheriff than consenting to or conniving
at the rescue of a prisoner from his GUS
90
lynching the prisoner or not. 1t is the duty
of sheriff to exercise the utmost vigilance
and courage in preventing the forcible TAX
ing of a prisoner from his custody, without
reference to the object of the rescue or the
subsequent fate of the prisoner. As far as
his duty to the State is concerned a sheriff
is required to make as strong fight to
prevent the forcible rescue of prisoner for
the purpose Of liberating him as if the pur-
pose were lynching, and. strong as his sus-
picions may be. he cannot know the inten-
ton Of the mob to certainty. In imposing
on the sheriff a penalty for the seizure of a
prisoner who is subsequently lynched that
does not attach to the seizure OF any other
prisoner. the law seems in a measure to
hold him responsible for what is done to
the prisoner after the sheriff has lost con-
troll of him. The people have right to ex-
act from sheriffs the utmost degree of vigil
lance and courage in the protection of pris-
oners, but they should not exact impossi-
bilities, and every reasonable person knows
that there are times when no amount of
personal courage on the part of a sheriff
would suffice to prevent the seizure of a
prisoner by a mob. At the time, a
sheriff should be held to the exercise of in
telligent.and reasonab BILE precaution for the
protection Of a prisoner, and IL he failed to
exercise such precaution in case in which
there was reason to apprehend mob vio-
lence he should be held responsible there
for Altogether, the enforcement of the
law presents some difficulties. The penalty
of removal from office under a stigma and
OF ineligibilty to reelection is a severe one
enough, for a sheriff who should connive at
the taking of prisoner from his hands by
a mob, but it should not be enforced with
out convincing proof that he failed in his
duty. The law gives sheriff whom it per-
emptOrily removes for dereliction of duty
the right of rebutting the presumption OF
guilt on his part and he is entitled to fair
hearing.