The Kennewick courier. [volume] (Kennewick, Wash.) 1905-1914, 1908-08-07
Law THAT DOES NOT PUNISH
Murderers and Other Offenders Freed
on Impractical Technicalities.

ioIloWlng techant criticism on the
tendency of the courts to follow.
abstract reasoning to the vanishing
point" regardless of practical re-
suits, will be read with interest. Il
was written by Denver lawyer,
James G. Rogers, and appeared in
the New York Independent:
That the administration of the
criminal law in all the states of the
Union is disgrace to our civiliza-
ton, is statement credited to
William H. Taft. Sidney Brooks,
In the London Chronicle, says, the
criminal law of America is refuge
and comfort to the lawyer and the
crimidal, and a menance and vexa-
ton to the rest of the community"
What do these charges mean?
Such affairs as the following:
In Georgia in 1907, the second
trial for murder of a man named
Bagwell came up. On the first
trial the jury had disagreed, and
had hurridly been discharged by
judge, without mailing the prisoner
out of his cell into the courtroom.
The supreme court would not per-
NIT him to be tried agarn. Why?
Because the constitution provides
that no man shall be twice tried for
the same offence except in the case
OF mistlial, and moreover, man
must be brought face to face with
the witness against him. The dis
missal of the iurs in his absence
amounted to an acquittal.
A few, months the same court in
Georgia reversed a conviction for
receiving stolen cotton. The pris-
oner had been cought with the 800
pounds of cotton of a peculiar sort,
the sort stolen, locked in his store
house and wet with the night rain.
But in the trial the prosecutor had
forgotten to ask somebody, any
body, whether cotton was a thing
Of value. The court, or jury, it
appears, could not be permitted to
know that 800 pounds of seed cot
ton had value without being told.
In Indiana in 1908, one James
Gillespie was to be tried along with
three others for the murder of a
woman of the same name. 1t was
evening when the jury was finally
impaneled and sworn. In the
morning the public prosecutor, be-
fore the case was opened, asked
that one juror be removed and an
other be substituted in his place.
The juror, the prosecutr had learned
over night, had falsely sworn that
he was not related to the any of the
defendants. AS matter of fact he
was related. The court gave an
opportunity to substitute another
Juror. The case WENT on; the jury
| disagreed. On the second trial
Gillespie was convicted and given
life sentance. The supreme court
turned him loose. The substitution
of the first juror was manifestly an
acouittal of the crime. 1t is quite
| plain.
In Illinois, in 1907, defendant,
Elgin by name, was found guilty of
trying to set fire to a creamery to
defraud an insurance company. But
the judge in describing the elements
| Of the offence land describing them
correctly had casully used the
| word arson Moreover the jury
in findidg Elgin guilty had found
him guilty of arson as charged in
1.-THE Indictment The indictment
was invulnerable, the conviction
was clear, the jury had had no op-
portunity to be .misled, the in
structions were fair, but arson"
is the burning of dwelling house
and not creamery. Reversed.
That these decisions are prevent
ed law, that the legal conditions
that permit such decisions are vici-
Gus and unsafe, that the pres
ervation of order has been lost
sight of in an effort to allow alb
stract reasoning to the vanishing
point-seems very clear. In only
one of these cases was there any