The public had assumed that men trapped in bribe-giving would be measured by a fixed rule of the law, and their proper punishment in due course be meted out to them. That anything else could be had not occurred to the average citizen.
But the astonishing performances at the graft trials, the extraordinary anti-prosecution publicity campaign, and, finally, the amazing technical defense, and the failure of the graft defendants to take the stand and manfully deny under oath the charges brought against them, opened the eyes of the public to the fact that the methods of criminal procedure were sadly inadequate.
And the further fact was emphasized that while the weak points in the methods of bringing an offender to punishment could be used to advantage by the rich man, they were unavailable to the man without the means to employ a lawyer to present the technicalities governing his case.
Out of this conviction, came agitation for reform of the methods of criminal procedure. An elaborate plan for such reform was presented to the 1909 Legislature.[495] But the machine element controlled the committee organization of both houses, and the measures were defeated.
At the 1911 session of the Legislature, after Johnson had been elected Governor, measures for the reform of the criminal procedure similar to those defeated by indirection at the 1909 session, were introduced. Many of them became laws. But, unfortunately, certain labor leaders were made to believe that the measures were aimed at Labor. This led to opposition which resulted in the defeat of several of the proposed reforms.
One important constitutional amendment was, however, presented to the people that goes far toward correcting the abuses which attended the graft trials. This amendment provides that “no judgment shall be set aside, or new trial granted in any criminal case on the ground of misdirection of the jury or the improper admission or rejection of evidence, or for error as to any matter of pleading or procedure, unless, after an examination of the entire cause including the evidence, the court shall be of the opinion that the error complained of has resulted in a miscarriage of justice.”
Not a vote was cast against this amendment in either house of the Legislature. The feeling against the use of trifling technicalities for the release of convicted criminals which the graft cases had displayed so glaringly, was shown in the popular vote on this amendment; 195,449 voted for the amendment, while only 53,958 voted against it.[496]
The San Francisco graft prosecution succeeded in sending but one of the corrupters of the municipal government to State prison. He, too, would in all probability have escaped imprisonment but for the absence from the State of a single member of the Supreme Court at a critical moment.
But the graft prosecution did something infinitely more important than the sending of a few corruptionists to cell and stripes. It awakened a State to its helplessness against a corrupt system. The People arose in rebellion against the “System,” and is laboring to throw the “System” off.
In 1910 and 1911 a political revolution was worked in California.