There is no way to ascertain the number of innocent persons indicted, but if my judgment is correct the total is not small. How could it be otherwise, when the Grand Jury goes through its business in such a hurry. It should be observed also that the Grand Jurors themselves are not competent authorities in criminal law, and when efficiency in the work of prosecution is measured rather by the total number of persons indicted than by the percentage of those sent to prison, the weakness of the system becomes apparent.
The fault does not lie with the Grand Jury or with the District Attorney; it is with the system. The Grand Jury simply does as did other grand juries and the District Attorney does as did his predecessors.
To show that the Grand Jury as now constituted is unqualified to find indictments in a large number of crimes, I need only mention three cases which must have cost the County of New York in the neighborhood of millions of dollars, which if they had come originally before a Board of Criminal Experts, certainly never would have gone to trial on the weak indictments that sent all of the three defendants to the Death House.
The first was that of Maria Barberi, who was convicted of the murder of her sweetheart, Dominico Catalonica, July, 1895.
Catalonica had greatly wronged this woman, and then refused to marry her. While suffering under great mental excitement, after she found herself ruined and disgraced, and forever cast aside, she killed him. Although insane when she committed the deed, she nevertheless was tried and convicted and sentenced to the Electric Chair, but the Court of Appeals gave her a new trial. When all the facts came out at the second trial, she was justly acquitted.
The second case was that of Roland B. Molineux. He was indicted for the murder of Mrs. Adams in 1899. A board of trained experts, having two lawyers and physicians never would have convicted him, as there was no legal evidence to convict him of such a crime. He was convicted mainly on the evidence of paid handwriting experts. Doubtless, a hundred other persons might have been indicted for the same offense. At the second trial he was acquitted.
The third case was that of Albert T. Patrick, who was jointly indicted with Jones for the murder of William M. Rice. This is said to have been one of the strangest criminal cases that ever was tried in a Court of Justice. Nothing was done until Jones turned State’s evidence; then he said that he killed Millionaire Rice at the suggestion of Patrick, with chloroform. Patrick was convicted of murder in the first degree, and Jones allowed to go scot free. Since then, nine hundred reputable physicians have come forward and said in a petition to Governor Higgins for a pardon that Rice could not have been killed with chloroform. After being four years in the Death House, the Governor commuted Patrick’s sentence to life imprisonment.
If Patrick’s case had been carefully examined by a Board of Criminal Experts, he never would have been indicted, and the county would have been saved a vast amount of money, and needless trouble.
My plan is that a Board of Criminal Experts be organized and assume all the present powers of the Grand Jury, and in addition, classify all criminals; this board to consist of five persons—two experienced lawyers, two physicians or alienists and one business man. These five men should pass upon criminal matters, and when they find an indictment, give the proper classification to the accused.