The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1908-11-20
DELAYS IN JUSTICE.

DELAYS IN JUS ICE.
In an address to the National Mu-
nicipal league at Pittsburg, Attorney
General Bonaparte touched on the
most vital subject confronting the Am
erican people-the administration of
justice.
There has been marked movement
all over the country in regard to this
subject and recent and conspicuous
example of its expression has been
Taft's speech before bar association
in Virginia in which he called atten-
ton not only to the delay of the
courts but TO the responsibility Of the
American people for the administra-
tion of law rs affected by service on
juries. He pointed out the condition
that every one knows, that the veal
thy man who can afford to employ
counsel for his defense can often and
indeed in most cases, get rid Of the
penalties for wrong doing on purely
technical grounds and emphasized the
fact that the poor man is affected by
the delays of the machinery of the
law whether he is a defendant or
plaintiff.
This subject was touched on at
some length in the resolutions of the
American Bar association and this Or
ganization is representative of the
best of the legal profession in Amer
lea.
The Thaw trial if it served no other
purpose than arousing the public con-
science on this subject was productive |
of good, if it had cost twice the enor-
nous amount of time and money ex-
pended The affair of the Ruef-
Schmitz trial in San Francisco is a !
remarkable example of the number of
technicalities which can be interposed
in court proceedings
1t may be urged that these delays
and technicalities are part of the
machinery which has been placed in
procedure to guard against the punish
ment Of innocent men. 1t often seems
to the long suffering public that the
very opposite is true.
1t Is said on good authority that
three out of four is the average of per-
sons convicted in the continental
courts while here in America the av-
erage is one in thirty-eight Verify,
1t seems that in America the CRATER
and the boodler is guaranteed liberty
for his proceedings.
And so 1t is that the following words
from the Attorney General of the Unit
ed States SO appropriate at this time
The legitimate problems of the
criminal law. he said, are two, first, to
find out when and by whom the peo-
pies will has been disobeyed, and sec
ond, to so deal with the one guilty of
such disobedience that others and or
dinarily himself as well, may be
taught to obey in future.
As an instrument to these ends"
he then declared, Il think American
criminal law today has very serious
defects, in fact, that in large measure
1t fails of its purpose.
"A principal cause of this failure. to
my mind he continued, lis it's anxi-
ETY. to guard against a danger which
was once very serious, but which has
now become almost chimerical. the
danger lest men really innocent be
convicted of crime" He asserted that
the risk that any man trying in good
faith to obey the law shall be punish.
ed as criminal is almost inconcefv-
ably small. l question:" he added,
whether it is one hundredth part as
great as the risk he runs of being kill
ed or manned by an automobile"
The principal reason. however, for
the smaller percentage of convictions
is the fault of the grand juries who
fail to do their work in successful
manner and in most cases have only
perfunctory routine which goes on
undisturbed. The indictments which
these bodies return are in many cases
so clumsy and so altogether absurd,
that it is hard indeed often for the
courts to take them seriously. Alto.
gether the citizen who reflects on the
situation sees the clumsiness of our
legal apparatus but that is as far as It
will go until some grave miscarriage
of justice comes along to quicken the
public Indignation to the white heat
OF doing something.