The Grenada sentinel. [volume] (Grenada, Miss.) 1868-1955, 1912-02-16
THE SLUGGISHNESS OF JUSTICE

Last week a young man named Wolter was executed in New
York. The murder for which he suffered the penalty was commit
ted on March "a, 1910. He was brought to trial, convicted, anc
sentenced within thmty-four days. But his execution did not take
place until twenty-one months later. The short interval between the
crime and the conviction affords an excellent example of the way
in which the criminal law ought to work. The interval, twenty
times as long, between the conviction and the punishment affords an
excellent example of the way in which the criminal law ought not
to work but actually does work in this country.
Two months ago the Criminal Court of Appeals of the State of
Oklahoma handed down an opinion which contained some very per-
tinent comment upon this sluggisbness in the administration of our
criminal law. The court quoted statistics showing that in four years
only forty persons were tried for murder in the city of London, and
that during eight years eighty per cent of the persons tried for
crime in England were convicted. 1t also reported figures showing
that during the year 1910 nearly nine thousand persons died by per-
sonal violence in the United States, and that during that year there
were two hundred and two homicides in the city of Chicago alone.
What is more significant is that in Chicago during that year only
one person was sentenced to death for homicide. The opinion says:
"When a man kills another in England, the chances of his escape
from punishment are exceedingly small, and the probability of his
speedy prosecution and execution stares him directly in the face. 1t
cannot be denied that this exercises a wholesome and restraining in
Auence upon the passions of men, and results in respect for and con.
hdence III the law, and consequent protection to society. We inher-
tied our criminal Jurisprudence from England. The trouble is, we
have endeavored to maintain it just as we received it, and we are
still striving as hard as England did before the Revolutionary war to
maintain technical regularity and form at the sacrifice of everything
else. On the other hand, in England the trial of criminal cases has
been simplifed, and many of the arbitrary technical rules of the
common law, the effect of which was to hinder, delay, and defeat
justice, have been abolished, while America keeps on using the old.
antquated, worn-out, secondhand, cast off legal garments with ref
erence to the enforcement of criminal law which England has long
since discarded and thrown away. 1t is time that the courts of
America should act for the present and the future, and consider
the past only for the purpose of avoiding the mistakes therein made
If the courts desire to enjoy public confidence and respect they
must earn it by besing their decisions alone upon substance, and BY
paying more attention to justice than to shadows, form and technical
regularity"
The facts in the Woter case and the comment of the Oklahoma
court arouse two refections-one, that the problem which the court
so admirably states is one of the most serious which the American
people have to solve; the other, that a court which does not hesi
tate to state the problem so frankly and incisively is in title dancer
of recall-The Outlook.