New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-08-26
WHY MURDERERS SHOULD LIVE
A Summary Of Evils Attendant on
Capital Punishment.
To the Editor of The Tribune.

l
Sir: Noticing an article headed why
Capital Punishment Should Not Be Abol-
ished" in The Tribune this morning, | would
respectfully make reply. Being member
both of the Manhattan Association of Congre-
gational Ministers and of the Massachusetts,
bar, although not in active practice of the
law since entering the ministry, | would
answer first from the Biblical side and next
from that of the practical business man.
In the Mosaic code, not only crimes but
minor offences were punished by death.
Among these were the cursing of ones par
ents, Sabbath breaking and blasphemy.
Should the argument advanced in the letter
to which am making reply be accepted and
carried out, it should also include the minor
offences for which capital punishment was
prescribed in those olden days, and necessl-
tate the confscating of some third-rall sys-
tenn to furnish sufficient power to electrocute
all of our Sunday crowds who "break the
Sabbath" and the unwise individuals who
Ihabitually "swear."
But to deal with real facts: In Michigan
the death penalty was abolished in lo47
From reports of the Michigan state prison
found that between that date and 1874 Michi-
gan had sixty-eight murders. Dividing this
period of time into two periods of thirteen
and one-half years each, found that during
the first of these there were thirty-seyen
murders During the second, the murders
amounted to thirty-one. This itself showed
decrease, but also discovered that the popu-
lation Of that state had nearly doubled.
Rome, under the Porcian law, fourished for
$50 years without the death penalty, and
boasted of the infrequency Of crime ("North
American Review" Vol. 1873, p. 553). In Hol-
land, during the decade following the aboli-
ton of capital punishment, murders de-
creased nearly one-third, as was found by
the late General Newton NJ. Curtis, of Ogdens-
burg, after his investigation of the working
of life Imprisonment in Holland. The late
Judge Sanford NJ. Greene, in his book, Crime:
! Its Nature Treatment, Causes and Proven
ton" states that Portugal did away with the
death penalty in 1867 and that her annual
| list of murders was greatly reduced. In the
populous province of Bombay, India, life i'm
prisonment was substituted for capital pun
ishment several generations ago, and as early
as 1886 Robert Rantoul, in "The Boston Daily
Atlas" reported that during the seven years
following the abolition of capital punishment
murders in the province of Bombay were but
one third as frequent as during the seven
years Immediately preceding it.
! Sound reasons underlie these results. The
State of New York has ever taken human life
| in order to impress the public with the sa-
credness of human life. A Rev. William
Roberts, chaplain, of Bristol, England dur
| ing his experience conversed with 1877 men
convicted of murder and found that all but
three had been eye-witnesses to executions,
as the Hon Henry W. Lord said before the
National Board of Corrections and Charities
| in 1880. Executions, far from restraining
criminal tendencies, create the very germs of
murder. II dime-novel accounts of crime
have bad influence on the public, how much
more brutalizing must be the effect of these
| legalized killings, emphasized as they are by
reality! Is it not the certainty, rather than
the severity, of any penalty which constitutes
the real deterrent from crime?
Innocent men have often been legally exc
cuted. Since the death penalty was abolished
in Michigan | know of nine different cases Of
/ innocent men having been set at liberty be-
cause their innocence had subsequently been
established. In the law library of Cornell
University found in one small volume writ
ten by Phillips, the great authority, entitled
Famous Cases of Circumstantial Evidence"
no fewer than twenty-nine cases given in out
/ line wherein innocent persons had been con-
victed and put to death. Some were New
York cases. Besides these, found long list
wherein executive cemency had saved inno-
cent lives. Sir James Macintosh, after long
study of the subject, asserted that in England
alone one innocent man had been executed,
On an average, for every three years of time.
His statement was reprinted in "The Albany
Law Journal" Vol. XIII, p. 264. | quote the
| following from paper OF Minot South Da-
kota, September II, 1905; Dear Mr.. Boyer
j In the early 7o's Charles Sterling, supposed