The leader., 1905-09-27
PIKE COUNTY JURIES OPPOSED TO
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.

VhflthL EUNlJMWLINte
From the record made during
the last Is or 20 years, it may be
said that, to all intents and pur.
poses, capital punishment has
been abolished in Pike county by
her juries, no matter what the
law or testimony. We briefly re-
call some notable murder cases
which sustain this statement. The
first was the cold-b -blooded assassi-
nation of Varnado on the streets
of Osyka about 16 or II years ago.
Varnado was the victim of con
Ispiracy. The first Of the conspi-
rators tried, DR.. j. j. Goss, was
acquitted outright. Subsequent
", VIM. Ryals, another, was con-
Victed and sentenced to the pen
itentiary for life and later par
doned; while an old negro, the
least responsible Of all the parties
implicated, though hired to do the
shooting, was convicted and hung.
But the hanging Of this old Mig
ger of the third part IN the Var
nado murder case, was the last
supreme effort of Pike county
jury in the direction of actual
capital punishment that we can
recall. Since that time a Pike
county jury has decided that hang
ing was too bad for Tom Garner,
who slipped up to Farmer Cau-
sey's home on the Sabbath day
and murdered both him and his
good wife in cold blood, and SEN
tencedGarner to life in the peniten-
tiary, from which he later escap-
ed. Progressing in their policy
of clemency to murderers, we
next find Pike jury surprising
the country by refusing to hang a
negro for numbering a white man,
and bringing in verdict of life in
the penitentiary for Will McPhail,
the notorious negro who murder
ed Assistant Marshal McMorris,
of Summit in the discharge Of his
official duty. The climax, how
ever, along this line was reached
when a Pike jury brought in its
verdict in the Slade case, a report
of which is given in another col
umn of today's paper. If select
committee, experienced in Grim
inology, had been sent out to rake
Pike county with a fine tooth
comb and bring in the man from
all her confines that most deserv-
ed a rope halter, they could not
have found a deepersdyed william
than the testimony brought out on
the trial showed j. b. Slade to be.
False to his marital VOWS and OBJ
legations and to all decent regard
for his own family, the seducer OF
an innocent girl of 13 whom he
compelled to live with him in
public shame for dozen years
and then when she had finally es-
capped his Iecherous clutches and
married, still pursued her with
lustful desire and waylaid and as.
sassinated her husband, without
so much as a moments warning,
a blacker or more callous-hearted
criminal than he was proven to be
could scarcely be imagined; and
yet the Pike jury before whom he
was tried recommended him to the
mercy of the court and three Of
the jury hung out to the bitter
end against the death penalty.
Hereafter, if men who commit
capital offenses in other counties
will get a change of venue tc
Pike, Judging the future by the
past, they will have nothing tc
fear from the extreme penalty o.
the law, no matter how black and
damnable their crimes.
It is certainly very alarming
and serious matter when juries
uniformly nullify the law on this
subject. 1t may be that the courts
and prosecuting attorneys are no
rigid enough in purging iuries il
capital cases of men who have
lscruples on the subject. Surely
no man who is unwilling to infici
capital punishment when both tht
law and the testimony warrant it
has any business on a jury in suct
leases.