Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1907-01-23
OUTSIDE POINT OF VIEW

Strange as it may seem. the same
disease does not always require the
same remedy. This Is as true OF the
community as of the individual. The
wise physician facing a critical case
inquiries into family characteristics,
temperament and other family pecu-
liarities in present and past genera
lions before administering the medi-
cine SO should we carefully inquire
into causes OF a disease that affects
the body polite before claiming cure
for such disease.
All this and more suggests itself
when we approach to study cure for
the present contagious and almost cpl
demic fever OF mob law. For certain
it is mob law requires different treat
ment for cure in Alabama than In
Iowa. Here in Iowa we can generally
agree the latest outbreak at Charles
City was caused by the legal procras-
tination in the case of Busse, the wife
murderer of Butler county. In the
south no such cause exists or Is inn
aglned. No one south of Mason and
Dixon's line thinks for minute that
the colored murderer will escape a
just penalty by legal trickery. but that
is the cause of mob law in Iowa. The
words are, selected with care. legal
trickery, places Busse in Anamosa a
life prisoner, and that same legal
trickery made mob in Charles City
possible.
7 Our courts and cur lawyers are so
constituted today, that placing a COM
ma before or after a word today in le-
gal papers may hang or free a murder
err, Misspelling the name of a man.
witness or juror may destroy the ver-
dict of a jury in trial costing thou
sands of dollars. A justice of the
peace, ignorant Of the forms OF law,
may institute legal proceedings that, in
higher courts be declared illegal and
result in retrial and acquittal. All these
things and many more are at the pres
ent time considered of sufficient inn
portance to set aside the verdict of
lower courts and frequently allow con-
fessed criminals, If not to escape en-
tirely, but to receive less punishment
than confession warrants and law de-
mands. In a word, in these days law
yers and judges regard the letter OF
the law more than the spirit, the intent
of the law.
Again. at the present time any law
yer or firm of lawyers who by sharp
practice, l. e., legal trickery, sue
coed in allowing confessed criminal
to escape the punishment that the law
prescribes for the crime, consider that
it is a praiseworthy act Furthermore,
their brother practitioners congratulate
them on such occasions. Such lawyers
soon acquire a reputation as criminal
lawyers-how true to the name-and
when desperate of the worst type
his friends at once secure the legal
talent Of such criminal lawyers, not
withstanding their fees have. grown
larger. In fact such criminal lawyers
get these large fees because they are
adopts in legal trickery. All this is
known as an everyday affair, and
such lawyers stand at the head of the
bar respected by the courts and look
ed up to as examples worthy of emu
lation by the graduate of the law
schools.
1t is a natural thing that such shrewd
LAWYERS in the course Of time become
Judges of the higher and lower courts.
With such ethics of the profession as
a part of their legal experience, they
easily; fall into the practice of admitting
that technical errors are of vital
imnortance. Ever since the mob
law at Charles City, one of 1owa's best
Judges, an honest, upright judge" in
conversation with the writer said. IF
such trials as Buses do cause such
mobs as disgraced Charles City we
must proceed along such lines"
"wrong instructions to jurymen must
be valid reason for new trial"
Legal papers must be made out ex-
actly as the law requires or be worth
less" punctuation is as necessary
thing in a legal document as the words
themselves" "The supreme court OF
Iowa had to render the decision they