New Britain herald., 1915-02-16
Capital Punishment, A Futile Evil
(NeW London Day.)

l
 An attempt is being made to re- l deem the state of Connecticut from 1 medievalsn, to purge her of future 1 guilt of legal assassination. A bill is l before the legislature putting an end l to capital punishment It ought to 1 pass and be signed and become law. There are two separate principal 1 reasons why capital punishment should be done away with. The first is that it Is wicked and barbarous to take human life, whether or not by process of law. The second that the prescription of capital punishment not only does not surpass that of life inn prisonlnent as a deterrent influence upon the crime Of murder but actual 1 ly operates in the opposite direction. Seven states of this union have ad- vanced beyond the stage where it is deemed just and eXpedient to meet murder with murder; and in none of them has the percentage of homicides increased There are more murders than elsewhere in those states where the penalty is death in a particular ly mysterious and repellant form, the grim, terrifying electric chair.
 Over and over again it has been argued. without successful contradic- tion, that opportunity to accept life Imprisonment, instead of death on the scaffold, has never yet been proven the deciding consideration in the com mission of a homicide. The difference between the two forms of punish ment has never been either the prem ium that induced the taking of life 1 or the overcharge that discouraged it. Not one instance is on record of a murderer deciding on his crime be- cause he knew that perpetual impris- onment, not death, was to be his lot. Capital crimes committed either in expectation of cheating the law al- together and escaping all punishment { or under such stress of passion that 1 no regard whatever is paid to conse- Cuences.
 1 But the death penalty has this eff l feet: It erects a barrier of pity
 against the just administration of the l law; it enlists in the interest of a suspected, even known, murderer, | a certain degree of public sympathy 1 that would not be given to one
 charged with a lesser crime It seems
 to justify extraordinary measures of
 defense calculated to\ defeat the ends
 of justice altogether. It affects the
 minds of jurors and infiu- ! ences them to aCQuittals when
 their better judgment leans toward 1 conviction. It is responsible for 1 large proportion of those miscarriages ] of justice for which our system of 1 criminal jurisprudence is notorious all l over the world and more than any 1 other cause, is responsible for cur l long list of unavenged homicides. 1 Beside the inherent wickedness of 1 legal murder, and it's futility, there is l another weighty reason why it should l never be committed-its irrevocable- 1 ness. Once done it can never be un- done; and there is always the chance ! of a mistake in the finding of guilt. ! There is a bill in the legislature now i to pay a cash compensation to a man
 who has served two years in prison l for assault with intent to kill. He
 was properly tried and properly con- victed-on the evidence. But he was
 { innocent, as is now known If the.
 man who was attacked had been ! killed, as was intended, this other i man, on the same evidence, would l have been hanged. The state can make 1 some compensation, as it is: it has
 at least restored him to freedom. But l if he had been hanged what good
 would it do him that his innocence | became established after he was in his
 grave?
 1 Capital punishment, through all
 1 the centuries, has proven itself q i failure. It is time to consisn ii tn | the place of outWorn things, along with slavery, the rack and wheel 1 witchcraft, and all the horrors ha.
 gotten of ignorance, superstition and barbarity.