The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1911-02-03
WORSE THAN LAWS DELAY
Cases Where Defendants Were Set
Free; Such Foolishness.

Duluth Herald: While the de-
mands Of President Taft that the
operations of the courts of the ma
be made more swift have included
more than once the phrase from
Hamlet-"the laws delay"-there is
another feature in the judicial pro-
cedure of the country that is in
comparably more in need of refor-
nation than that of slowness in the
movement of the powers of justice.
1t is what the Atlanta Constitution
calls "the tyranny of technicality,"
a poison that has entered into the
decisions of courts in this land of
the free SO often that hardly any.
body is unfamiliar with it in some
form.
Recently two particular gross in
stances of this abuse of the courts
power have come before the public.
One of them comes from Oregon, in
the case Of man who beat his
wife to death with strap. He was
tried and convicted before a jury.
There was no hint of illegality in
the trial, and no criticism of the
procedure was made by the defense
either during or after the presenta.
ton of the case. The jury found
the man guilty. But his attorney,
with the kind of ingenuity that one
hates to classify in respectable COM
pany, went before the court of re-
view and satisfied the judges that
his client ought to be freed. The
indictment, he showed, charged that
the crime was committed with Il
deadly weapon, and strap is not
included in the list of deadly weap-
ons described by the Oregon stat
utes. The learned judges saw the
point and freed the convict.
The other case comes from Cali
fornia, where man convicted of
arson for setting fire to a neigh
boris hay was set free because the
state law provides only that punish
ment shall be melted out to the man
who dares to burn a haystack, while
in this particular case the defendant
had only started the fire by ignit-
ing a haycock. The dictionary over
ruled the plain meaning of the stat
ute, in the minds of the judges.
California furnishes yet another
case of somewhat similar charac-
ter. A murderer had been convict
ed, and part of the states evidence
consisted of a confession he had
made to the police. 1t was shown
that the man was put through the
horrors of the third degree in order
to make him confess. 1t was shown
only that he had not been informed
beforehand that his confession
would be used against him in court
AS a matter of fact, according to
reports, the confession was not need.
ed to establish the fact of the crime
But the supreme court of the state
decided that its use even as cumu.
lative evidence instead of as pri
mary, was enough, under the circum
stances, to invalidate the trial and
conviction, and the prisoner was
freed. The case was particularly
glazing, since the prisoner murder
ed his employer for money, and dis
membered and hid the body, and
when arrested was trying to col
| lect money on certificates of deposit
issued in the dead mans name.
Those are a few samples of law
as it is administered in some OF
the higher courts of the land. Those
are the kind of things that make w
the tyranny of technicality." And
those are the instances that prove
that President Taft is right when he
declares that our judicial procedure
needs thorough renovation, both
to open the courts to the poor man
with real grievance and to make
the term Justice" mean something.