We could name a dozen of well known characters whose crimes have been heralded all over the land, who were sent to the death house, but after a couple of years, when the Court of Appeals decided that they should have another trial on a mere technicality, returned to the Tombs, and after a few abortive efforts to convict them a second time, were liberated, as the important witnesses were dead, or could not be found. It is difficult to say wherein lies the trouble. But with our present elective system, we are apt to get some very poor material as Judges. They lack educational and experimental qualifications. Nor can we abolish the right of appeal because some judges make foolish rulings. With such judicial material on the bench, the right of appeal is our only safety valve, and must be retained.
There is a widespread feeling in our day that many trials are only a huge farce, and the “unwritten law,” “benefit of the doubt,” and “long-drawn-out hypothetical questions” in a large number of cases are allowed to defeat the ends of justice.
In regard to homicides, nothing would appeal to the good sense of the community after an atrocious murder has been committed more than to give the murderer a speedy trial and summary justice. It is all “humbug” to keep a murderer shut up in the Tombs from six months to a year before trying him. When he goes forth to trial, if the witnesses are not all dead, they have forgotten nearly all of what was once fresh in their memory. Let there be speedy trials and quick punishment for all kinds of crime. This will deter others from following the footsteps of evil doers. In murder cases it would be well also if capital punishment were abolished, and life imprisonment substituted.
In nearly all the advanced countries of Europe, in criminal trials, swift justice is the order of the day.
In Great Britain there are no long-drawn-out trials. Nor will the judges allow delays on mere technicalities. Each case is decided on its own merits.
As a rule, the presiding judge exercises full control over the case, and as a result everything is done with quickness and dispatch, and the higher courts uphold such rulings.
In speaking of the lax conditions of our courts, a recent writer says: “The machinery of our courts seems to be passing slowly and inevitably into disrepute. Processes wrought out by wise and noble-minded men for the protection of life and property and the dispensation of justice, have been seized upon again and again by unscrupulous pettifoggers, and every technicality of the entire legal procedure has been converted into a loophole through which some scalawag has escaped. The country swarms with unhung murderers, and with thieves who walk the streets at noon unmanacled, who ought to be wearing striped suits inside of prison walls. When murder trials drag their weary lengths through the disgusting weeks and months of the year, only to end at last in a new trial, or in a pardon issued by some sentimental fool who has reached the Governor’s chair, is it to be wondered at that hot-headed men lose respect for statutes and judges and begin to talk of taking the law into their own hands? It is high time that our judges and lawyers were awake, and took measures to reform the present processes of criminal jurisprudence so as to make the punishment of crime both swift and certain.”
It is a great mistake to shield rich criminals from their just desserts, as is sometimes done. Punishment should be meted out to all alike at all hazards, else it will have no terrors for the wrongdoer. Criminals must be impressed with the dignity and majesty of the law—no matter what is their social or commercial standing.
A few years ago, Roland B. Molineux had a hard battle for his liberty. He was always brave and optimistic, and believed all alone that in the end he would be vindicated. He must have spent about twenty months in the Tombs, and the same length of time in the death house awaiting the decision of the Court of Appeals. As I had always taken a deep interest in the young man, I called to see him in the death house. Here he manifested the same hopeful spirit he had shown all along. During his long confinement it looked sometimes as if fate was conspiring against him, but thanks to his gritty father, who stuck so nobly by him, and the matchless eloquence of Governor Black, the undisputed Demosthenes of the New York Bar, he was finally acquitted. In this trial, which was fairly conducted, Governor Black was master of the situation, and conquered. From this time, either in civil or criminal trials, the Governor was the peer of any lawyer in the land. It must also be said that there was another gentleman, who filled no inconspicuous part in the vindication of Molineux, and that was Judge Olcott, who was a peacemaker and diplomat of the highest order.