Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1903-04-22


The Scripture argument and that from
reason being presented, lot us notice
few of the arguments on the other side.
l. Capital punishment is inefficient
from the difficulty of enforcing it.
1t is said that not more than one per-
son out of fifty tried for murder is exc
cnted. Those who suffer the death pen
ally are usually from the lower class,
while persons from the higher walks of
life, though equally guilty, go uuwhipped
of justice. The great dramatist makes
one of his characters in King Lear ex-
claim:
"Through tattered clothes small vices do appear;
Robes and furrcd gowns hide all; plate sin with
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;
Arm 1T in rags, pigmy's straw doth pierce it,"
1t is lamentably true that wealth and
other forms of power often shield crimi.
nails of a certain class from the extreme
penalty of violated law, while others, no
more guilty, are obliged to suffer. But
this is no reason why life imprisonment
should be substituted for capital pun
ishment. Without the latter the former
would be just as easily evaded. The
strong would escape and the weak would
be caught. Then, according to the argu-
ment that capital punishment should be
abolished on account of the difficulty of
enforcing it., we would have to alb dish
life Imprisonment also. And to be con-
sistont, we would have to go on abolish
ing until we would land in anarchy.
2. Innocent people have been executed?
1t is an awful thought that innocent
men have suffered death while the actual
murderers escaped. 1t is SO awful that
IL has given birth to the proverb: "It is
better that hundred guilty men escape
than that one innocent person suffer-"
This Proyerb, like many others in vogue,
ls misleading. A better one would be:
Let no innocent man suffer and no guilty
one escape. There would be strict JUS
tice i'll that, and justice is the object of
law and courts. But to let hundred
criminals escape punishment, from the
fear of Furnishing some unfortunate limo,
cent person, is piece Of sickly senti-
mentalism that tends directly to defeat
justice and to encourage the violation of
law. 1mperfection exists in all things
earthly, and injustice is sometimes done
when not intended. Whose is the crime
when an innocent man is executed as
murderer? Not necessarily the court, or
jury, or lawyers, or witnesses, but in
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the
real murderer has made himself double
murderer by causing the death of the
innocent victim of the gallows. He has
slipped away and is hiding out. Suspi-
ciOn points to some one else. The police
are notified. They are keen on the scent.
They arrest the suspected party. He was
in the neighborhood of the homicide.
He can give no satisfactory account of
himself. Circumstances are against him.
He is tried. He pleads "Not guiltyn'
but cannot establish his innocence. On
circumstantal evidence he is convicted,
sentenced and executed. There have
been cases like that, and they are exceed
ingly sad. But such cases, deplorable as
they are, furnish no ground for the abo-
lition of capital punishment and the sub
stitution of life imprisonment in it's
inn Ia,,
fenced to the penitentiary much more
frequently than to the gallows, and If the
gallows must go because it has hanged
an occasional innocent man, the peni-
tcntiary, by parity of reasoning, must 90
too, because 1T has punished more inno-
cent people than the ga!lows has exc
cuted. And what do the sentimental
reformers propose to do with the double
murderer if they get him in their powerp
The brute is too nice a man to hang, al
though he butchered one man and caused
an innocent one to be executed besides!
They must send him gently to the inn
proved penitentiary, with its school and
lecture and theatrical attachments, and
its beautiful open air play grounds, to
learn trade, to get an G cation, to
develop athletic power SO = 70 fit him in
few years for pardon, and return to
society that must give him a royal well
come, killing for him the fatted calf and
3. The abuse OF capital punishment is
often used as an argument against its
continuance.
In the past it has been greatly abused
by it's infliction for various small offenses,
such as stealing cow or a dog. While
under British rule some Of the Thirteen
Colonies enforced this horrible law in
this country. hundred and forty years
ago, in England, in the time of Black
stone, no less than one hundred and
sixty offenses were punished with death.
But the abuse that found expression in
this way was further aggravated by the
cruclties practiced in inflicting the death
penalty. 1t was often done by stoning,
crucifixion, flaying, flogging, racking,
starving. burning and torturing by all
the pain producing means that the inge-
unity of heartess men could invent. But
this is now practically done away in all
civilized countries. In the United States
only two or three crimes are punished
with death, aud tho tendency is to limit
the death penalty to wilful murder only.
The argument from abuse, once so
potent, is gradually dying out. But
even the abu, o of a thing is no argument
against its lel itimate use. The abuse of
government Is no argument in favor of
anarchy The abuse of discipline Ia
family, school or church is no aISument
In favor of no discipline at all in the in.
stitutions that have so much to do in
shaping human character and destiny.
4. Notice a couple of the causes that
tend to render capital punishment inope-
rative.
i. The abuse of trial by jury. This is
one Of the rights extorted by the English
barons from King John in 1915. But
Grcat as that right was at the time It was
ccuceied, and greatly as it is still cher
lsled by the loyers of liberty, there are
m;ny who doubt the wisdom of its con-
tinnance, especially in murder trials.
The manner OF forming jury tends +,