Daily Arizona silver belt., 1909-05-30
ABsURDITIEs or THE LAW


 The narrow, technical vision of some judicial minds, as too frequently dis played in court decisions, supplies am pie material for the advocate of crimi- nal law reform. Well nigh incredible are tho technical points invoked to re- verse verdicts based otherwise upon solid foundation of uncontrovrtd tsh- mony, and mere citation of few of them will suffice to show to what 8 farce the administration of justice is reduced upon occasion. The Supreme court of Missouri appears to be prime offender in this regard.
 Recently the sentence of two years Imprisonment pronounced upon Fred Warner, enc of the St. Louis boodlers convicted by the efforts of Governor Hadley when prosecuting officer of that city, was reversel by this court, not because there was any evidence showing that the man was not guilty, but be- cause a minute flaw was discovered in the indictment. It consisted of the om- mission of the last word "the'' from the formal phrase "against the dignity of the state." This particular techni- cality appears to be pet hobby of the Missouri Supreme court, for in at least one former decision the verdict of the lower court was reversed because of a similar omission. It is the same court that reversed conviction of murder in the first degree because the foraman of the jury wrote ''fust" degree murder into the verdict instead .f the more proper "tirst'' And the same court, it should be remembered, reversed all the verdicts against tha St. Louis bood- ling gang on technicalities no better than the foregoing. In one instance the court after finding the record 'fun of .unc ontradicted evidence of venality,' reversed the verdict of guilty for two small errors in unimportant evidence and @ quibbic over variance between the indictment and the instruction. This quibbling the court solemnly pronounced essential to accord the defendant "av- cry right and guarantee which the or ganic law of the state secures to him."
 Doubtless the records of ths higher courts of every state would furnish like examples of judicial fidelity to the technical and even the decisions of ths United States Supreme court are not free from them, as may be gathered from the fact that this high tribunal has more than once reversed the con viction of a red-handed murderer for an unimportant error in the court below. The Springfield Republic quotss two cases from the Mississippi Supreme court records. An indictment for mur- der alleged that the victim "then died.'' The verdict was reversed be- cause it should have read "did then and there die" In the other case it was alleged in the indictment that ths de- fendant "did then and there willfully and feloniously set fire to and burn" a barn. This would have passed muster if it had contained the word "malic- iously,'' and the omission of that ad- verb was deemed sufficient reason for the reversal of presumably just yer dict. In the minor courts of New York city violation of the liquor laws are difficult to punish because the judges have invented such bubbles as that the chemical competition of 8 drink must be proved before it can be shown that an illegal sale was made, or that sale to police officer is not viola tion of the law because made under dur ess, without intent to commit crime, and is, therefore, not crime.
 It is judicial absurdity to assert that these technical applications of the law are in any sense guarantee to the in- dividual of rights of person. They amount, in fact, to maladministration of justice, and as such merit tho con- derrn atsou of every good citizan. l