The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-08-23
ish Capital Crime?

The death penalty, as feature of the penal code, is undergoing a process of evolution which, judging from existing tendencies and those which have char acterlzed the worlds jurisprudence dur ing the past fifty years, must result in its cofplete extinction. It now exists in forty states of the American Union.
 In the investigation of this subject, the writer caused inquiries ti be ad. dressed to the attorney generals of these forty states, asking their opinion as to whether capital punishment tend- ed to diminish capital crime.
 Eighteen of the forty declined to ex- press an opinion. Anly sixteen of the attorney generals of the states which infiict the death penalty declared them selves as clearly of the opinion that capital punishment does tend to dimin- ish capital crime. Two of the forty were positive in their conviction that the death penalty does not tend to di- minish capital crimes, and stated their opinion that the death penalty should be abolished, while four of the forty gave qualified answers.
 In the five states of Kansas, Maine. Michigan. Rhode Island and Wisconsin, where capital punishment does not ex- ist, the attorney generals have noted no Increase in capital crime since the abol- ishment of the death penalty, and gen. orally express themselves as satisfied with the conditions existing in their respective states. In Michigan, Wis consin and Rhode Island capital pun ishment was abolished over forty years ago, and has not since been re-enacted. Though nominally prescribed by law in Kansas, the death penalty can be ex- ecuted in that state only upon the Gov ernor's warrant, and the Kansas gover- nor's have consistently declined to is- sue a death warrant, the condemned persons, meanwhile, remaining in pris- on. In five other states where the death penalty exists, the trial juries have powet to cowwute it to life im- prisonment. .
 The right of the state to take the life of citizen has always been and doubt less must remain an academic ques- tion, although, conceding the soundness of the doctrine of "consent of the gov erned" as the ultimate basis of govern- mental authority, it must be admitted that one cannot be morally held to 8 contract whereby he consents that an- other may take his life In our civil jurisprudence no man can give another the right to do him bodily injury. Sucu contracts are always void as against public policy. But the case against capital punishment is made when 1t is shown simply that it is unnecessary. IL is coming to be understood that the majority of human beings do not re- frain from the commission of capital crimes merely through fear of being hanged.
 Every person who commits a capital crime knows that, in states maintain ing capital punishment, the death pen atty is affixed to that crime. From a personal study of more than two thous- and cases I am convinced that most crimes are committed by persons who either CD expect to escape all punish ment, or (2) who upon the spur of the moment, are regardless of all punish ment, or (3) who are governed by cos mic, social, or individual factors which render the prospect of punishment in- operative as a deterrent agency at the time of the commission of the crime.- Thomas Speed Mosby, in Harper's s Weekly.