The New York Tombs Inside and Out! / Scenes and Reminiscences Coming Down to the Present. A Story Stranger Than Fiction, with an Historic Account of America's Most Famous Prison.

by John Josiah Munro

Strange Sentences

During many years of careful observation, I have seen some strange sentences. If you are poor and have a mean enemy, with the aid of the police, he can inflict great injury on you!

I knew the case of a young man, who found some worthless junk wire outside a factory, and was sent away for a year. In the next cell was a crook with a “record” who was aided by a cop, and a crooked lawyer. He stole a thousand dollars. His “bit” was only six months.

Another fellow who swindled several dry goods stores out of $17,000, was allowed to plead to petty larceny. He got off cheap—only six months.

Such travesties of justice have often been witnessed in New York. Indeed, men and women have been known to conspire with lawyers and others to send innocent persons to prison, and they have succeeded!

I knew well the case of John H. While he was in prison, his wife suddenly became the friend of a certain police official. After he had secured his liberty he was informed that he must keep away from his old home. Soon after he was arrested, charged with a crime of which he was entirely innocent. When he went to Part I, General Sessions, to plead, a legal pettifogger who was sent there by this man’s wife stepped up and informed him that he would take his case. He did so, and without consulting him entered a plea of guilty. He was then sentenced to six years’ imprisonment. He found out afterwards that it was a conspiracy to get him out of the way. It was a success.

I recall the case of an Italian who was charged with the murder of his wife. He was caught “red-handed,” and two of his children told the coroner that they saw him do the deed. John F. McIntyre ably represented the people, and Judge Fursman presided in the Criminal Branch of the Supreme Court. When the case came to trial, the Italian children had evidently been tipped off to forget all about it. As they had manifested entire ignorance and forgetfulness of the crime, and could not remember a word of what they told the police and the coroner, the murderer was allowed to go scot free!

We knew a man who stole $40,000, and yet received a suspended sentence. But this should be said, that the money was taken to save another man, and not himself, and the deficiency was made good. Perhaps it was only fair that the sentence be suspended. We know two young men who were in the Boys’ Prison at the same time. One stole $10,000, the other just one dollar. The lad that stole the ten thousand dollars had his friends make restitution, then the complainant recommended extreme leniency. In view of his former good character, the court gave him a suspended sentence. The boy who stole one dollar had been in prison and was out on parole. For this new crime he was sent to the House of Refuge.

There is the case of a young man named Sullivan, who stole a tray of valuable jewelry from a Columbus avenue house. A morning paper commented freely on the “pull” that gave the prisoner a suspended sentence. The owner of the store did not relish the thief getting off so easy. In speaking of the affair he said: “The next time a thief visits my place, I will make no effort to bring him to justice. What is the use, if he is let go after his guilt has been clearly established? The robbery was carefully planned, and was well carried out. The Court should have given the thief a medal. Why not?”

While chaplain, I was sent for by an unfortunate girl, an inmate of the Women’s Prison. She had the usual tale of disappointment and misplaced confidence to tell, which was full of sadness. Most girls, strangers in New York, and far from home, have usually a hard road to travel. After I heard her story, I remembered that there was a prominent lawyer in the city that came from the same place of which she was a native. The gentleman was an ex-Assistant District Attorney. I felt if I could only get him interested in the case, she would have a better chance of securing her liberty. I made a personal call on the gentleman. He had spacious offices in the vicinity of Wall Street. As soon as I had mentioned this young woman’s name, he at once recognized it. Indeed, he had been intimate with the family for years, and was willing to do anything for her. All of which was very encouraging. I then asked him to make a note of the date when she came up for sentence. At my suggestion he called one of the stenographers to make a memorandum. “Mary Ann,” said my legal friend, “make a note of this,” and looking very pious, he said, “I do this for the love of God; yes, I do this for the love of God.” By this time the clerks and typewriters began to snicker and laugh. Just as I had expected, all this pious talk did not amount to anything. The poor girl was finally sent away to one of our institutions.

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CHAPTER XXIV
CRIMINAL BRANCH OF THE SUPREME COURT

When on January 1st, 1896, the present Constitution of the State of New York took effect, there went out of existence the Court of Oyer and Terminer—a court whose quaint name accorded well with its interesting history and associations.

It was an exclusively criminal court, closely allied to the Supreme Court, and although unlike the “Circuit Court” not strictly a part of it, its judges were Supreme Court Justices assigned to hold it and interlocutory proceedings in actions pending therein were taken in the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court is now the highest court in this State having original jurisdiction—that is, having the power to hear the evidence in and determine actions commenced therein or removed thereto from an inferior court, as distinguished from the right to review on appeal. It may take cognizance of all manner of civil and criminal actions and proceedings triable in a State Court, except the impeachment of public officials, of which a quasi-criminal court—the Court for the Trial of Impeachments—alone has jurisdiction.

In New York County, one part of the Supreme Court is usually devoted to the trial of criminal actions, and that part ordinarily sits each month in the year, except July, August and September.

Cases that, because of the nature or circumstances of the crime charged or the prominence of the persons involved, are of particular public interest or importance are usually tried in the Supreme Court.

There are material advantages to the accused in being tried in this court. The proceedings are apt to be more deliberate. The justices are experts in Civil Law, and have the advantage of the training which results from contact with the best legal minds and the consideration of the many difficult and important questions that arise in civil practice.

The range of the criminal law as compared with the civil, is very narrow. The experience of the practitioner at the criminal bar tends to develop forensic rather than reasoning faculties; to narrow the mind and sharpen the wits, rather than broaden and deepen the intellect; to make alert, cunning, effective cross-examiners and wielders of technicalities, rather than strong logicians, quick in the discernment of fundamental principles, and ready in their application to the case in hand.

Constant contact with the criminal classes, either as an advocate or in the exercise of judicial functions, has a tendency to deaden the sympathies, to lead to a complaisant view of the criminal as something inevitable, and to an indifference to the suffering that flows from his punishment. It results in an intuition and a preception of criminality in acts and persons where it frequently does not exist—in an unconscious predisposition to discover something sinister and evil in what may be innocent or merely injudicious.

It is not a slur on the gentlemen who, with marked ability, untiring industry and sincere conscientiousness dispense justice in other criminal courts to say that the Supreme Court justices who hold criminal terms of that court are their superiors in the qualities that make a good judge, because of their wider experience and consequently better judicial qualification, and because of their freedom from bias against the accused, except such as may be temperamental.

Variety in thinking is essential to the best mental effort. Contact with many minds develops the mentality. A judge of a court exclusively criminal meets but few members of the legal profession, and confines his attention to a very small range of subjects. If he grows intellectually, it is because he wanders outside of the four walls of his judicial duties. How much better it would be if his field of effort were enlarged, so that his work would increase rather than contract his capacities. It is not for us to suggest a remedy, although one could readily be found, so far as the higher courts are concerned, in the merging of the Court of General Sessions in the Supreme Court, and the holding of a greater number of parts of that court for the trial of criminal cases.