Arizona republican., 1908-05-28
A YEARS SENTENCE
 FOR LABOR LEADER
Albert Ryan, Well Known In Arizona Politics Convicted of Murderous As saut.

Had Albert Ryan, the secretary of the Jerome Miners Union, not made the outbreak in court of which he was guilty last Saturday, he might today have been a free man, punished for his assaulting on Frank Burns another mining man in the copper city with a pistol, with a fine, says the Journal Miner. Now he will have to serve one year in the penitentiary at Yuma, unless the supreme court, to which he has taken an appeal, overrules the findings of the district court Ryan is out on S2500 bonds, increased from $500 after he was sentenced.
 It was Judge Sloan's intention. as he stated in his remarks before pass ing sentence yesterday, to have inflict- ed only fine, but when Ryan made his attack on the court and jury, Judge Sloan postponed sentence until Monday. and then gave Ryan one year at Yuma. In passing sentence Judge Sloan said
 We must take the law as we find if. Whenever a majority of the people of this country decided to change it may be changed. In the meantime it is the duty of all citizens to obey it. and the sworn duty of the officers of the law to enforce it. If all men re- spected the law, and were always dis posed to obey it, the punitive feature of the criminal law might well be omitted. Since some men in moments of weakness will forget their obliga- tion to keep the law, and others will not at any time recognize this obliga- tion, the law wisely calls to it's aid the fear of punishment. The purpose sought therefore in punishing viola tiOns of law is to enforce respect for its commands and to deter others from similar violations. There should be distinction made between acts made criminal by law which are the result of human weakness merely and which are actuated by stress of circum- stances, and those acts which are prompted by a disregard for law and a contempt for its obligations. The law recognizes this by leaving in most instances a wide margin for discretion in the imposition of it's sentence.
 Applying this principle to the case at bar. If the court could feel that the defendant had not wantonly com mitted an assault in this case but through the stress of circumstances had yielded to impulse or sudden an- ger. inasmuch as no actual violence was inflicted, the milder alternative allowed the court of imposing a fine merely, would now be elected. Giving to the defendant the benefit of every doubt in this behalf, the court had it in mind to pronounce such a sentence when the case was called on Satur- day. The attitude assumed by the de- fendant then, which can only be con strued as one of contempt for the law and defiance for its administration, has made it imperative upon the court as the representative of the law to re- wise its judgment. To impose the milder sentence would probably be construed by the defendant and by others of like mind as a confession of weakness, and therefore the salu- tary effects of the sentence would be rendered nugatory. When the law is respected, leniency may well be shown. But where it is challenged in terms of contempt, a sterner sentence is demanded in order that respect for it may be maintained by those who are disposed to respect and obey it.
 With the most solemn sense of the obligations imposed upon the court, its Judgment is that you are guilty of the crime of assault with a deadly weapon and that you be imprisoned in the ter ritorial penitentiary for the term of one year, beginning with today"