The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-01-17
THE DEATH PEANALTY NEEDED

THE DEATH PEANALTY NEEDED. A former states attorney who has
 been elected to the Indiana legislature
 announces his intention of introducing
 a bill to abolish the death penalty for
 murder. He offers the usual argu- ments, one of which is rather surprising from man of his official experience.
 It is that so many men have conscien-
 tious scruples against the death pen
 alty that it is hard to get good juries
 in murder cases.
 Probably there are very few lawyers
 who have prosecuted half dozen mur-
 derers who have not clearly seen just
 what the so-calIed conscientious scru-
 ples'' of the average jurymen are-that
 nine out of ten such jurymen do not
 wish. for one reason or another, to
 serve, and the aversion to jury service
 rather than to the death penalty is
 what ,arouses in them a sudden activ-
 ity of conscience. * as
 It is a fact worthy of note that the
 federal courts, where some crimes in
 addition to murder are punishable by
 death, seem to have no difficulty in
 getting jurors to try such cases. The explanation is of course, that jury
 service in the. federal courts, generally involving a journey from home, is more attractive than in the state courts, and so does not raise con scientious scruples' nearly so often. Agitation against the death penalty for any crime has gone on in this coun- try for many years, but it has been &C., tually abolished in only four. states.
 Several states which once abolished it
 have restored it. The Illinois legisla- ture passed an act of abolition in 1867,
 but men are still hanged for murder
 here. Iowa abolished it in 1S72 but re-
 stored it in 1878. '... ''<
 Maine, Rhode Island, Michigan, and | Wisconsin abolished the death penalty obout the same time, and appear to
 have been satisfied with the results. Other states have been equally we'll satisfied to keep it or restore it. Many
 people thought thirty years ago that | this was a great reform that was
 going to sweep the country. It did not,
 and nothing has really been done on
 that line since.
 Statistics are often appealed to as
 proof that the death penalty does not prevent murder, and that it's abolition does not increase murder. The question l is not one that can be decided by statistics The frequency of murder
 does not depend, wholly on the laws ! for it's punishment but partly on the efficiency of their execution, and most of all on the tone of the community to- | ward homicide.
 In regions where it is considered all right to kill a man under certain cir l cumstances men are killed, and the law regarded merely as an inconveni- I ince. In communities where it is con- sidered very wrong to kill a man un- ! der any circumstances murders seldom l occur, and would not be more frequent | no matter what the law.
 Yet one has but to hear the average
 man when he is telling of his feelings ] when strongly provoked to learn that the gallows is q real restraint upon | murderous passion in the average community. There the average man
 may greatly wish to kill somebody, but he knows that the feeling around him is pretty strong against murder, ! and he does not wish to hang.