The Coconino sun., 1921-02-25

among whom the number of crimes committed is out of all proportion to their population.
 Can't Enforce All Laws.
 While crime is growing almost out of control in America, and sweeping from the large eastern centers into the smaller and more remote places like hurricane, fewer and fewer ar rests result in conviction, Mr. Fosdck shows. Yet, laws are being piled up every year on the federal, state and municipal statute books against every sort of minor infraction and the en- forcement of many of which the pub lie opposes.
 Mr. Fosdick has estimated that in the average American city--a city the size of Fl PasO-there is a total of at least 67,000 laws applicable to the city and its people.
 No policeman or other officer, he declared, can or will enforce even per cent of those laws. 1t has got so, he says, that officers enforce laws there are fees in and laws which bring them rewards and promotions or the limelight or failure to enforce which would bring them censure from their superiors.
 Among the petty things which laws are piling up against, MT. Fosdick says, are such things as selling cigar cts, selling tobacco on Sunday and playing golf or other games on Sun day.
 In some Massachusetts towns and in several cities of the south, the report ayers, the police are bothered almost to distraction in efforts to get them to enforce laws aimed at controlling nor al conduct with the result that mer- chants and leading citizens are con stantly annoyed while grand juries persist in their refusals to indict the accused persons simply because they regard such laws as foolish and silly. 1 Meanwhile robberies, murders and all other major crimes are growing and the perpetrators are often not caught and when caught get off en- tirely or with easy sentences or fines.
 Nine Years Delay.
 Mr. Fosdick has taken some exam pleS of the laws delay from several parts of the country to show how our law works.
 In Chicago bartender named Thomas Chap shot and killed a IT, year-old boy for scratching a match on the bar and for kicking dog. That was on February 10, 1911. The case was repeatedly continued until Decem- Der ?, 1919, nearly nine years later, when the bartender was acquitted Similar delays are cited from other cities. The wide use of technicalities, such as failure to cross "t's" dot 'i's," " or to put in the "the's," has turned loose many bad criminal, the inves- tigatOr says.
 How different it all is in England, MT. Fosdick says, where an appeal must be taken from the court of first trial within 10 days after the verdict is given and where a final decision is usually made within 30 days from the date of appeal and where large majority of the lower court decisions are affirmed. The author says that in England there is no red tape in court procedure. The attorneys and the judges go into the case with the aim of finding out whether the defend- ant is guilty and for no other reason. lmpaneling a jury in England is a matter of minutes, whereas in Amer ica it may take weeks to get a jury. In one famous case in Chicago more than 5000 veniremen were examined before l2 could be found who were satisfactory. It took 90 days to get the jury. After all the trouble the de- fendant got off.
 "Don't Blame Police.
 Against the American record, take this: In 1919 in England only 355 cases were appealed to the court of appeals. Of that number 17 convic- tions were quashed, F sentences re- duced and the rest stuck.
 Don't blame the police, at least not for all of the conditions in America Mr. Fosdck pleads. There are four big reasons, he says, for the increase in law violations in America. First there is the technical criminal pro- cedure; second, the long delays and uncertainty of punishment; third, the badly chosen personnel on the bench and in the department of the prose cutting attorney and fourth, the state of the public mind toward crime anC the criminal. On the last Mir. Fosdick says the traditional American sym. pathy for the underdog has brought us into maudlin attitude toward ev cry accused person, almost, in whom we have no interest and for whom police reporters and skillful lawyer! can work up sentiment. "VictOrious" on Paper. Many of Americas leading jurist! have become alarmed at the state ot affairs in American courts and police departments, MT. Fosdick declared, a! well as at the growth of laws aimed at regulating conduct not along tn, ] lines of public interest, but to conform with the notion few people have O. how we should live.
 Among the laws now on the statut, books of some states which leading le gal lights are rising to condemn are Laws against kissing, laws agains face powder and rouge, laws agains earrings, laws regulating the lengtl of women's skirts, laws fixing the sig, of hatpins, laws against playing cards laws against smoking cigarets, law against Sunday amusement.