The Prescott daily news., 1916-01-03

| disposition on the part of the juries to accept most any kind of an excuse for killing and acquit and exonorate the slayer. He said it certainly ought to be as easy matter to convict a man for taking the life of his fellow man, as it is to convict a man for stealing pig. He deplored the fact that human life was getting to be so cheap. In his earnest appeal for rigid enforcement of all the criminal laws, he took the Governor to task for what he contended was an unwar- ranted exercise of the pardoning pow CT, and which he claimed was a serious obstruction to the enforcement of the criminal laws. On reaching that part of his charge, the Judge used the fol- lowing language:
 "Gentlemen, the peace and order of this, as well as every other communi- ty, depends upon the proper enforce ment of the criminal laws of our state. If the laws are not enforced, or in other words, if those who commit crime are not made to suffer the pen alties provided by the law, then crime and anarchy must prevail, and no man can feel safe and secure in the enjoyment of those rights guaranteed to him by the constitution of our country. It is true, that great many people are law abiding citizens simply because it is morally right to be so; others are restrained from committing crime solely on account of the fear of punishment. A few unstrained crimi- nals can overturn and destroy the peace and quietude of. any community. So the only guaranty against crime, and the only protection that the peo- pie have against criminals is, for the officers of the law, who are charged with the responsibility of it's enforce ment, to see, as far as it is possible, that the laws are strictly enforced against those who would trample them under their feet. And in this connec- tion, want to say this, that as 1 see it, there is one serious obstruction to proper and effective enforcement of the criminal laws in cur State; and that is, what I conceive to be an arbi- trary and indiscriminate exercise of the pardoning power; and it seems to me that the time has come when all officers of the law, as well as every private citizen in the state, who feel an interest in upholding the law, and in the preservation of peace and order among our people, should cry out from the house-tops against such indiscrl- minate and unwarranted exercise of the pardoning power. It has gotten to the point where the conviction of criminals in Arkansas, in very great many instances, practically amounts to nothing. Tn other words, the yer diets of the juries and the sentences of the Courts in great per cent of the cases, are absolutely revoked, abro- gated and set at naught by the EXecu tive department in this state. The question of merit or demerit in the applications for pardons, cuts no figure either one way or the other, but 1t all depends on the personel of the party or parties presenting the application. The poor criminal who is not fortunate enough to have some influential friend %.~ h n rarely ever gets a pardon. l could call your attention to many speclhc instances which have come under my own observantion where some of the worst criminals have been pardoned after serving only a short part of the time for which they were sentenced, while a great number of others were pardond even before they ever left their homes to go to the penitentiary. Since I have been Judge of this Cir cult, quite a number of white people have been sentenced by me to the pen itentiary for various crimes, and bar ing a few cases in which the parties convicted. had no friends and no mon ey, every white man sentenced by me, has been pardoned by the Governor without serving one minute of his time So with this state of affairs existing at the head of the State government, the conviction of criminals does not i and cannot have the effect that it oth- erwise would. But notwithstanding this Gentlemen of the Jury, it behoov-