Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1909-05-14
#1isesllaueuus geadias.
INJUSTICE IN THE COURTS.
The Case For Reform In Procedure
StronqIy Put.

strongly Put.
Does II sound sensational to declare
that American law, to very large ex-
tent, makes for injustice? The faces
are as sensational as the sound. fhe
American Bar association has admitted
it; leading judges have admitted 1t, and
President Taft once framed a pointed
amendment that no judgment, civil or
criminal, should be set aside unless 1t
appeared affirmatively that the error Of
the complaint had resulted In miscar-
riage of justice. Americans often
mourn about lynch law. Not always do
they take into account the part played
by the laws delay in encouraging rough
attempts at justice. In England pro-
cedure is swift and punishment follows
with certainty. For seventy-five years
In England, Ireland, Scotland and the
British colonies all over the world there
has not been one case Of lynching. We
have recently pointed out that the law
yers succeeded in beating simplification
in Montana. In an admirable article In
the Kansas City Bar Monthly for
March, Prof. John D. Lawson OF the
University Of Missouri recalls the fact
that when the Missouri legislature
passed law simplifying procedure the
supreme court of that state upset It.
Judge Lawson believes that our civil
procedure is immeasurably behind the
age, and that In criminal procedure we
have not advanced a step since the
days Of Queen Elizabeth. Judge Am
idon Of the Federal bench has stated
that IL a. man has the means to keep
up the fight he can, in a majority OF
cases, escape punishment for crime.
AS our rules are now, the main con-
Germ is not a search for truth. Law
yers struggle to get errors into the
record, witnesses are bullied and judges
are afraid. Those complicated tech
nicalities which the English judges in
vented long ago to protect the indi-
vidual from cruelty and oppression
have been retained and exaggerated
by us. The English threw them. away
when the days Of cruelty and oppres-
sion were at an end. An indictment In
England now states, in perhaps forty
words of the utmost simplicity, thatsa
cestain crime was committed by q GER
tain person. We fill pages Of foolscap
with .the4nest. ridiculous language, and
then upset convictions If some one Of
the unnecessary words can be strain
ed into failure to observe some minor
rule. The conviction Of a man for
murder Is upset because the foreman
Of the jury spelled first "fust." An
other conviction for murder is upset
because the indictment charged that
the victim died instantly, instead of
then and there; another, because breast
was spelled without the "a; another,
because the record failed to state the
fact that the prisoner was present at
his own trial, although the court could
readily have determined that he was.
These things truly sound incredible.
We need a Jeremy Bentham to goad us
into making legal justice reality. We
need a novelist to do what Dickens did
in BLEAK House." or what Goldsmith
did in "A Citizen Of the World" We
need a John Wesley to point out that
our attempts at justice would have
brought discredit on any court of CEN
turies ago in Greece and Rome-Col-
lier's Weekly.