The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1909-11-04

tressingly low. In his charge to the jury
at Alexandria on Monday, Judge W. +.
Blackman. than whom few men in the State
ever had wider experience in the trial OF
criminal cases is quoted as observing:
"How can this be in a civilized country?
It should not be. If it does not stop there
will be no security for life in our midst.
The taking of life on the slightest pretext
must be stopped. The jury system of the
parish is complete failure on the homicide
question. When will it ever stop, if it is
he handed down from sire to son? This
this thing of feeling it their duty to go to
court the minute they hear that friend is
to be tried for homicide, focking around
the court room, getting on juries, perjuring
themselves. It's shame that such con-
dition of affairs exists. We must build up
better moral sentiment. Make these
fellows who take human life suffer the
penalty of their crime. You can't enforce
the laws unless there is strong moral
public sentiment. 1t is your duty to enlist
strong sentiment against this thing"
This severe arrangement of the failure
of juries to meet the test in cases of homi-
eide may be characterized as "brutally
frank but it is regretted that the picture
drawn is only too true. The cheapness of
human life in Louisiana and the leniency
of grand and petit juries in dealing with
crimes, have, without shadow of doubt,
been the most powerful factors operating
to retard the progress of the State. 1t will
not avail to say that we are no worse than
some others are in this respect; as good
citizens interested profoundly in the build
ing up of our own welfare and in making
our State the greatest in the Union, we
cannot afford to rest satisfied with being
merely ssno worse' than some other bad
community is.
The question of the enforcement of law
and the punishmento of crime is not rela-
tive one; it is concrete and vital, and the
maudlin sentiment worked up by shrewd
attorneys for the defense is too often the
open sesame through which weak juries
permit red handed criminals to go unwhip-
ped of justice. These things, combined
with other, and sometimes even less cred
liable, causes, have brought the law into
dispute and promoted crime to such an
extent as to lead veteran jurist like Judge
Blackman to question whether 'the people
of Rapides are incapable of enforcing the
laws against homicide
But Rapides is not singular in that
respect. Judge Blackman might have
substituted the name of almost any other
of the parishes of Louisiana for that of
Rapides and the observation would have
been equally pertinent. Personal influ-
ence, maudlin sympathy, partisan politics,
lawless instinct and a false conception of
chivalry-all contribute their quota to the
too frequent abortions of justice in jury
trials and to the encouragement of crime.
The only remedy lies in the building
up of a proper sentiment, sentiment that
will look with no degree of tolerance upon
lawlessness in any form; whether it be the
act of the assassin with the stilleto or gun,
or the juryman with his perverted verdict.
The one is as dangerous to society as the
other, for the distinction between murder
and the shielding and Encouraging of MUIR
der is a difference in degree but not in
principle. Upon the churches, the schools,
the press and the homes the duty Of mould
ing sentiment which will make such
things impossible devolves. Security of
life and property is the basic principle
upon which civilized society and all per-
manent prosperity must be builded, fact
which can not be too often or too forcibly
emphasized.
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