The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1908-11-21
Recasting the
Criminal Law.


Attorney General Bonaparte may be
somewhat extreme, not to say per
the Southern states, but as a lawyer,
distinguished public servant and
citizen he has put the country under
obligations to him by his recent ad-
mirable address at Pittsburg before
the National Municipal League on the
subject of "the criminal law as a
means to enforce the peoples will"
That that law is~a comparative fail
ure Gas now administered in every
state in the Union is a notorious fact,
but lawyers are not inclined to ad
init it. Mr.. Bonaparte is an exception
TO this rule and he has given his pro-
fessional brethren a most excellent
example by frankly confessing the fail
nre and declaring that the American
people must recast their criminal law
If there is to be any effective check
to the crime which now foods the
land.
We cannot do better than quote a
few, passages from Mr.. Bonaparte's
timely address. Speaking of the end
less delays of the law as the least ex-
cusable of its deficiencies, he said:
"Why need there be foretaste of
eternity" he asked, between arrest
and indictment, another between in
dictment and trial and vet another be-
tween trial and actual punishment"
This he answered by declaring that
st. is partly because the bench's pro-
fessional opinion among the bar toler-
ate all kinds of dilatory, frivolous and
often ridiculous proceedings on the
part of the INSCRIPTIONS counsel in
tended to cheat justice of her plain
due; partly Because our lawmakers af-
ford almost infinite facilities for re-
view Of judicial action to the criminal,
although being very stingy in allow
ing them to the government, but main
ly because our laws show little sense
of the value 10 society of a speedy ad-
ADMINISTRATION of Justice
The legitimate problems of the
criminal law, he said, are two, first,
to find out when and by whom the
peoples will has been disobeyed; and
second, to so deal with the one guilty
OF such disobedience that others, and
ordinarily 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
it fails OF its purpose.
a principal cause of this failure, to
my mind" he continued, ''is its anxiety
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 1.-The risk that any
man trying in good faith to obey the
aaw shall be punished as a criminal
is almost inconceivably small
Il question" he added, whether it
Is one-hundretdth part as great as the
risk he runs of being killed or manned
by an automobile
He expressed the opinion. however,
that he would not have the law so
changed as to remove any substantial
safeguard to true innocence which it
now affords. He declared himself in
favor of grand juries, and of the law
that prevents a man once fairly and
properly tried for crime, and either
convicted or acquitted, from being
brought to trial again for the same
offense. He declared that zone of the
most enlightened changes made by
modern statutes in the rules of evil
dence permits the accused to testify
in his own behalf"
he concluded by declaring that the
people can rule if they are in earnest
and wish to rule. And, to show this
ea-nestness. he said, ito assure this
genuine and lasting supremacy, the
American people must thoroughly, ra-
tionally and honestly recasu its crimi-
nal law"
There will hardly be two opinions
about the truth of all that Mr.. Bona
psrte has said. The reform he calls
for Is urgently needed, but until we
- Rst the members of the bar them