Frequently the prosecutor in a criminal court, under the cloak of having a duty to perform, proceeds to do it with the vengeance of a fiend, and the bias and prejudice of a persecutor, and perhaps with murder in his heart.
Nor are we without numerous instances where the prosecutor or some of his assistants have been known to “gear” the machinery of the law so as to convict some unfortunate of a crime of which there was absolutely no evidence, except what was manufactured for the occasion. In doing such work, the police can always be relied upon for a certain amount of help, which they never fail to give. Then there is in every community certain degenerates, including emotional and hysterical men and women, ready to swear to anything asked of them, and who spring into fame during a sensational trial, not to mention the professional juror who draws two dollars a day for sitting around the court house, who is largely dependent on the public prosecutor for his sinecure.
There are thousands of people who all their lives have been the victims of cruelty, oppression and malicious persecution, but real justice they have not known. There are innocent men in nearly all of our penal institutions, who have suffered because of false swearers. They may appeal to an Executive, even a righteous one, who has so many intolerable conscientious scruples on the question of pardoning crooks that the poor, friendless prisoner is allowed to rot in prison, so that the righteous Governor may make no mistake.
But the innocent have this consolation, that their case has been sent up to Heaven’s Court of Appeals, where in God’s good time a just verdict will be rendered in their favor.
But what a crime it is to send an unfortunate to the Electric Chair, or State Prison for life, or even a limited term in jail, on manufactured evidence or opinions of an alienist, or a handwriting expert, who are given large fees for their testimony! Handwriting experts have made so many mistakes in the past that it is absolutely impossible to believe them. They may think themselves famous as interpreters of dots, curves, right angles and horizontal lines, but they cannot positively tell whether John Doe or John Jones wrote the document, and human opinions are not evidence. It is certainly a miscarriage of justice to convict any man or woman on such absurd testimony. If you have plenty of money, you can prove anything you please by the use of such expert testimony, or disprove it. But without the most absolute corroboration, expert testimony is worthless.
Crooks at the Bar of Justice
The day of judgment for New York criminals usually falls on Friday. It not only brings many surprises, but hidden things long forgotten are brought to light. Between the day of a man’s conviction and the day when sentence is passed, the officers of the law have an opportunity to look up his record, and report him in the true light to the judge. When he comes to the bar for sentence, the court has his life mapped out on paper. As soon as the judge begins to question the prisoner, his character for truthfulness is put to the test. Crooks who are as a rule notorious liars have poor memories. No matter how cumulative their guilt is, they are always innocent!
It is interesting to watch the proceedings when some scamp has come up for sentence. A good deal of stage work is done in Court for the effect it has on those present. The female relatives are on hand, weeping like steam engines, while the prisoner at the bar, who has made many promises, is as hard as a stone. Some of the men up for sentence are salesmen, confidential clerks and secretaries, who, when they lose at the races, steal big sums from their employers, and then have their friends “pull social and political wires” to get them out of their troubles; while the poor mechanic or day laborer who steals eight or ten dollars to keep the wolf from the door, has not a friend in the world, and usually gets a “soaking” when he comes to the bar. Perhaps his wife or mother has been to see the judge at his home, where she has created a “scene,” but it has done no good; he has got to go to prison. Not long since, Judge Cowing, one of the best of the General Session judges (now retired), said to a young man who had been before him on two former occasions: “You have been in Elmira and Sing Sing, and here you are again. Where are you going to end up? Your mother came to my house last night. Poor woman, I felt
Hon. JOHN F. McINTYRE.
A noted criminal lawyer