New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-12-02
JUDGE EXPLAINS
PAROLE DECISION
DeIehanty Asserts lndeter-
inmate Sentences Violate
Citizens Rights
CALAMITY" SAYS
M'ADOO OF RULING
Chief Magistrate Upholds
Use of FingerprintS
Against Defendants

Judge Delehanty, Of the Court OF
General Sessions, yesterday gave his
reasons for believing the Parole Board
law Is unconstitutional. In an opinion,
affirming that OF Tuesday, in which he
declared that magistrates had been
making unwarrsnted use Of fngerprint
records, he says that the law does not
specify standard 70 which a defendant
can resort for his protection and when
the magistrate must obey, and it there
fore violates constitutional provisions
that no person shall be deprived of life,
liberty or property without due process
of law.
Informed of Judge Delehanty's
opinion, Chief Magistrate McAdoo said,
III the ether judges of the General
Sessions should in the future agree
with Judge Delehanty, or. what is more
important, ii courts of review like the
Appellate Division Of the Supreme
Court or the Court of Appeals should
take the same view of this law as now
taken by Judge Delehanty, il would be
a great public misfortune, looking to
the substantial interests Of the COM
munity.
Explains Parole Law
$50 far as the magistrates courts are
concerned" Mr.. McAdoo continued, "ths
Parole Board and the law which ere
ated it came into being 10 deal with
class OF incorrigible offenders who are
in no wise deferred from their vicious
and criminal practices by sentences 20
the workhouse running anywhere from
ten days to six months. Some of the
women srraigned in the Night Court
have been convicted as many as twenty
times.
"rhe indeterminste sentence provid-
cd by the statute is not In any wise as
formidable as IL looks. The defendant
Is practically committed TO the custody
of the Parole Board. and he or she may
be discharged in one day or held for
the full term, rs the board, having
special advantages Of investigation,
may determine.
There is positively no better method
known to determine the individual
identity than the frgerprint system. 1t
Is absolutely accurate. In hundreds
OF thousands of cases not one mistake
has ever been made. Il would be a
great public misfortune II the consti-
tutional rights of a defendant are in
vaded by this system of Identification,
because no privilege, however small, of
a defendant, has really suffered AL
though given an opportunity, no de-
PENDANT in these courts has ever con-
tested the accuracy of a fingerprint
record.
This law is Of the greatest impor-
lance to the moral and physical we'll
being Of the community, tie efficiency
of the police, the repression of vice
and the curbing of the commercialized
interests that surround il. A pick
pocket facing an indeterminate SEN
tence will hesitate long time to pur-
sue his trade in New York. An ordi-
nary sentence is vacation, not pleas
ant, but all in the days work"
Delehanty Disputes Claim
In his opinion Judge Delehanty says:
considerable stress is laid upon the
claim that this provision Of law, which
attempts to commit to the Parole Com
mission the determination of the length
OF imprisonment of women who are
shown to have been frequent offenders,
that the law should be upheld since
its purpose is the repression and re-
form OF a disorderly element in the
community. | am not impressed with
the argument that the same institu-
ton can be regarded as q place of pun
lshment only If commitments to it are
for six months or less, but becomes a
place of reform IL commitments TO IL
are made for two-year periods.
The provisions of the law under
scrutiny az to notice" and 'opportu-
nifty 10 be heard (as to prior conyic-
tions) may be interpreted in as many
divers ways as there are magistrates
70 enforce them. The law contemplates
no such condition when a citizens lib
erty is at stake. The constitution re-
qulres that the statute shall specify a
standard TO which the citizen can re-
sort for his protection and which the
magistrate must obey. The validity OF
the law is TO be tested not by what has
been done under it but by what may be
done.
Defends Citizens Rights
ANY assertion that benefcent power
will be taken by this decision from a
parole commission, exercising that
PN"NA W. AHS bOSN VI hht
cannot weigh with the court. The pa
role commission never lawfully exer-
cised the power, and until it has the
power committed 10 il lawfully it
should be deprived OF its exercise.
"ln this country the rights and the
liberties of citizen have always been
regarded as Of far more Importance
than the working out of any theories
in administering the law held by pri-
yste or public bodies"
Burdette &. Lewis, Commissioner Of
Correction, a member Of the Parole
Board, conferred yesterday with the
Corporation Counsel with a view 20
carrying the questions Of constitution
atty and the valid use of fngerprint
record. TO a higher court. No method
was finally determined upon.
Meanwhile magistrates will follow
their own discretion as to whether they
should continue to give indeterminate