Brownsville herald. [volume] (Brownsville, Tex.) 1910-current, 1929-07-22

by Pete MCKENZIE, VINO was given
the death penalty; who won a san
ity hearing and escaped the death
chair when the Jury found him in
sane.
In the Millikin case from Cald-
well county, where a man much of
the same type as Le2hy was charged
with killing a woman companion, a
sanity trial was granted; but Mil
likin, also a brilliant and versatile
man who invoked the classics and
who quoted poetry, failed to con-
vince his jury, and finally went to
the chair.
So the score is one and one in
sanity appeals in similar Central
Texas cases.
Another Central Texas case, most
gripping in human drama of them
all, revolveS around the same issue
Of mental equilibrium, with the
future freedom Of the principal de-
pendent upon those modern scien-
tific measurin sticks of the psy-
ciatriSt. That is the case of Mrs.
Rebecca Bradley Rogers, who while
stenographer to then Atty. Gen.
Dan Moody, was arrested for rob-
berry Of the Buda bank. On her
trial at LAGRANGE, when insanity
was pleaded as her defense by her
husband-attorney, Otis Rogers, Mrs.
Rogers was given a 14-year SEN
tence. This has been reversed and
she faces another trial this year, to
be held at New BraunfelS or at a
place to be decided when the court
convenes at New Braunfels. The
same plea will be made that the
mental quirks and complexities
which have been her heritage are
such that she was not responsible
for the commission Of the alleged
offense Of single-handed robbery
Of the bank, when she locked two
men in a vault and escaped with
$1,000, according to the charges.
Fought on DefenSe
Leahy fought first on the de-
Tense that he was not guilty Of the
crime. His involved part in pro-
perry controversies, in which title
to a ranch acquired by the retired
physician was at stake, showed a
courageous procedure hardly believ-
able on the part Of one who should
have planned to do away with the
man who stood in the way Of his
gaining the property.
But with that defense gone, he
now, through the intervention of
the Taylor girl, rests his hope of
life upon the probings into his in
ner mind by the scientists who know
mental ills as doctors do physical
ills.
Seemingly he doesn't care. Seem
ingly he is content to go. But who
could believe a man can count off
a few hours given him to live, and
not turn in revulsive fear from the
giant shadow of the chair in which
many men before him have had
their lives fried out of them?
Recently, juries have been i'm
posing the death penalty with much
greater frequency. A practical re-
suit is that so many cases Of life
and death come finally to the man
who sits in the governors chair at
Austin that trying to decide the
perpleXing and battling questions
Of life and death has become of it
self almost a full-time job. For
the governors decision must en-
brace not only the findings Of a jury
on fact, the charges Of a judge on
law, but must take into considera-
ton all that the mentalists can
find in the inner ecesS Of a con-
demned mans mind, in order to
reach substantial justice, If he acts.
If he fails to act, then the con-.
demned mans claims to the relief
and benefit Of psychiatric science
| are foreclosed.
So troublesome has this become,
and with civilizations gradual
emergence from the belief that the
laws of man can confer the right
Of legaliZed murder, Texas already
has tried to get aWay from inflic-
tor Of death penalty except in the
most extreme cases.
Would Abolish Chair
Rep. Frank Baldwin of Waco this
year sponsored a bill whose purpos-
eS Gov. Moody has advocated
which in effect would have virtual
ly abolished the Use of the electric
chair.
Baldwin would have written into
the law that a condemned mans
execution should not he set, or the
man executed, until all the possible
maneuvers to save him we're ex-
hausted. That is, a judge would
not fix the execution date, and 6
man would not be executed until
the governor, after having all need
ed time for Investigation, should
order the execution. AS it is now,
the governor may enter a case only
by postponing the execution, and
he cannot do this without setting
up hopes in the condemned man
and his family. of his escape from
the most terrible Of all penalties.
The pressure upon a governor is
intense as the lawyers and family
Of a man plead in the last despera-
ton Of saving a condemned person
from the chair. Legislation that
was proposed, and which it has been
said will be revived, would take that
pressure off, would limit executions
virtually to those who escape prison
after incarceration and are recap
tured. 1t would prevent the eXecu-
ton of a man who became insane
after conviction, who now takes
the chance Of not getting a sanity
trial. Theoretically now the defense
of insanity forestalls the death PEN
atty from a person insane at the
time Of trial or commission of his
Offense.
Leahy's case, along with Pete Nc
Kennels escape from the chair and
Bob Silver's escape from the chair,
and the insanity aspects of Becky
Bradley's case, and the fact that
after all, the sanity question must
| be determined hV a nnn-eXnart i11rv