The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-01-18

othtes- HIS feBlStratlOn area tIHpiaSoo only those cities and states which have mortality statistics, and the estimated population of the registration area for the year 1908 is 45.02s,767, or 51.s per cent Of the total estimated population of the United States
 It would serve no good purpose to com pare the average number of deaths through homicides in Alabama with the proportion that exists in other states. It is sufficient to say that the comparison would neither be creditable nor fiattering, and that our record would be both unen- viable and deplorable. It is therefore use less to ignore conditions which can be known by any man who will seek nfor- lmaton. We cannot escape the responsf- sfilfty by attribnting this humiliating and dcporable condition. to the presence in our state of another race, and to the larger per cent of crime committed by regroes compared with our own people. In other states where the negro is found in numbers as large if not larger than in Alabama, we still lead in the percent age of homicides We cannot attribute this high rate of murder to racial differ ences, to illiteracy, or to density of pop ulation We must seek the cause for this condition and apply the remedy Popular government in Alabama is a fail ure unless human life can be made as secure in this state as in any of our sister states. We should not be content until it is as secure here as 1t is in the best governed states of the union. or tho old world.
 We have sufficient courts to enforce the law. We have able prosecuting off cers. Is it the fault of our people? We have as high a type of civilization as can be found in other states The mass tx.s~ lawabidng. We have a code of criminal laws that embraces almost every con ceivable crime.a The fault then must be in the enforcement of the law. We can not escape this conclusion Almost evory issue of the daily press contains grue- some details of another case to be added 10 the long calendar of homicides in Ala bama. The deadly revolver is never idle, and scarcely day passes that human blood is not shed. We know then that this appalling record of death from vio- lence exists; that it saps our moral and material interests and retards our devel- opment and progress. We know that crime is not sufficiently punished. The record of convictions and punishment is inf1nitesimal compared to the long call endar of those who are charged with homicide. We know these facts It Is our duty to find and apply the remedy
 In our zeal to protect the accused and to secure every person charged with crime fair and impartial trial, have we not also allowed mercy to temper justice to such an extent as to cause us 1o fail in our solemn duty to protect society? If, at any former period in the history of our criminal laws, there was a tendency to harsh and cruel punishment or to un- just convictions, such conditions cannot he c1a fn Op Ia trary we know that by intricate plead ings and motions, by delays and special favors, by repeated reversals In appel late courts-and upon technical and oft entimes insignificant rulings on the ad- mission of testimony-by the favors we extend to those charged with crime in the selection of jurors-we have rather sought to make our courts places of refuge for the criminal. who has ruthlessly and fagrantly inflicted injury or death upon the innocent or helpless.
 Why should the defendant be allowed more challenges than Is accorded the state? Why should the person accused be allowed more opportunities for escape from the consequences of crime than the state Is allowed to secure the conviction of tine guilty? Can such a preference be sustained by argument or justified by reason? There are too many reversals for technical errors. This is one of the fun damental defects in our system of crim- inal laws.
 In paper read at the last meeting of the Alabama State Bar association by a distinguished prosecuting officer in one of the districts of this state I find the following statement: 4t
 T have examined about 75 murder cases that found their way to the su- preme court Teported in random volumes 100 to 160 of the Alabama Reports). More than half of these cases were reversed, and not a single one of them on any matter that went to the merits of the case; and very few of them upon any matter, that could have influenced the jury in reaching verdict
 President Taft, conceded to be one of the great lawyers of the nation, summed up the whole situation in these words:
 "No judgment of the court below should be reversed except for error. which a court, reading the entire evidence. can affrmatively say would have led to diff ferent verdict. It should be for the de- feated party to satisfy the appellate court that the error was really prejudicial to him upon the merits
 Our forms of criminal procedure we acquired from England, and yet we have stubbornly refused to adopt the exten- sive and wholesome reforms of that same procedure which England began institut- ing in the last century
 AS Prof. John D. Lawson, an eminent law writer, truly said: 'Tn nearly every other branch we are teaching the science of today, but we are teaching the legal science of the days of the Tudors."
 Therefore, to prevent technical re- versals, where the merits of the case were not involved, a rule was adopted in England in 1878, and recently endorsed by the American Bar association, as fol- lows:
 No judgment shall be reversed or new trial granted on the ground of misdirec- ton of the jury, or the improper admis- sion of evidence, or for error in any matter of pleading, practice or proceed ure unless in the opinion of the appellate court, after an examination of the entire cause, it shall affirmatively appear that the error complained of has resulted in miscarriage of justice.'
 I earnestly recommend the passage of a statute embodying this rule in the laws of Alabama.
 There is another reform which, in my Judgment, Is fundamental and without which, in my opinion. we cannot expect to secure a proper. vigorous and efficient enforcement Of our criminal laws. and that is not only to restntct the power of our supreme court to reverse and remand cs ses on technical error, but to re-. store to our judges their common law mowers and to invest them with more lat itude and discretion in the trial of crim- inal cases To accomplish this reform it is only necessary to amend section 5S62 of the code of 1907.
 Our trial judges should not be mere
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