The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1907-02-13
THE UNWRITTLN Law.
!y,.at Judge Roger A. Pryor Says
About it in New York.

About it in New York.
| From the New York World.
| Judge Roger A. Pryor, who in 1898
reached the age limit Of 70 years and
retired from the bench Of the SUI
nreme court of New York, is a Vir-
ginian who had characteristic and
well-known ideas about chivalry and
honor as factors in right conduct.
He has always refused to prosecute
| or sit in judgment upon criminal
cases. though he has occasionally de-
Tended them. Asked by the Sunday
| World for definition of 'un7rit1en
law" Judge Pryor said:
.sTo get at what we hear called the
unwritten law in cases Of homicide it
is necessary, first of all, to find out
what the law is that is written.
.The Penal Code of the State of
New York, in Section 1S3 and follow
ing, aennes homicide as the killing Of
ore human being by the act, procure
rent or omission Of another" and
then proceeds to specify when it is
excusabIe or justifable. Accident or
misfortune may excuse killing, and it
becomes justifable in various degrees
under circumstances of self-defense,
in the discharge Of legal duty, ETC.;
also in the defence Of others when
there is reasonable ground to appre-
hend a design on the part Of the per-
son slain to commit a felony or to do
some great personal injury
Here we have in codihed form
what is, or has been, 'unwritten law
in some new or out-of-the way COM
nlunities, or in primitive times SIM
ply because the elaborate Penal Code,
which we know is not, or was not,
there in existence. Such conditions
do not prevail here. In New York
there is no recognizable unwritten
law. nor any tacit official acknowl-
edgment Of it as a legal factor.
s'The promptings of personal honor
and of chivalry toward women, which
most persons have in mind when US
ing the phrase under discussion, be-
long to ethics rather than to law.
They are taken for granted, like truth
telling and business integrity, and are
not to be urged or argued. Their ex-
preston is in acts and the interpreta-
ton of acts, not in words. The spirit
inspires the deed, but the letter does
not forbid or demand it.
"Men in some sections may be by
nature or tradition more impulsive
than in others and impatient for QUICK
action, and yet actuated by the same
motives of justice arrive at the same
verdicts by different lines. There are
various ways, all being legitimate, of
securing an acquittal for persons
charged with homicide under emo
tional circumstances.
eff we take the celebrated cases of
the last half century, from the Sick
les-Key to those figuring in the news
of today, it will be found that i1lva-
riably the persons supposed to be un-
der the protecting aegis Of unwrit-
ten law have been defended and ac-
Quilted on sound technical pleas quite
the opposite Of anything vague and
sentimental.
.sThe extreme delicacy of cases af-
fecting women's reputation is popu-
larly regarded in some quarters as
raison d'etre for that finer sense of
duty toward the sex which in the Mid
die Ages was chivalry and today is
called the unwritten law
'In reply to the question, How can
it be codifed? I should say: BY in
serting in the existing penal codes
category of conditions exemptins
-
clause to the effect that debauchment
or assault upon the honor Of wife,
mother, daughter or sister might I'M
der certain circumstances justify the
woman's legitimate or natural de-
fender in taking the law into his own
hands.
"But that in New York or in any
other State of the union today would
be paradox. By opening the way
for individual license Of judgment
and execution the law would stultify
itself. Unwritten law thus codified
would be very much like written law
lessness.''
The World follows the above opin-
ion of Judge Pryor with an account
of q number of cases where the So
called unwritten law has been ap-