CHAPTER XIII
A Dissertation on the Third Degree
That the present condition of affairs regarding the administration of justice in New York City is unsatisfactory, will hardly be denied, while such glaring instances of recent incompetency are fresh in the public mind. The many comments and editorials appearing in the best metropolitan newspapers attest that our citizens are conscious of the defects in this department, while the press of other cities throughout the country, and even abroad, reminds us in no uncertain tones how we are regarded by our neighbors. This matter has been recognized of recent years, and attention called to it by investigating committees appointed by our Legislature. But the efforts of these committees have been too widely distributed; they have attempted to investigate too many things in general; and the methods of the District Attorney’s office in particular, although regarded with suspicion by a large majority of those who read and think, and with contempt by those who know, remain—unexposed, despite the fact that they demand immediate attention.
It would seem as if some of the strenuous periodicals with which we are blessed, or otherwise, would find here a fruitful field for sensational effort; but it is precisely to “yellow journalism” that the District Attorney’s office caters; and this branch of the press will be unlikely to turn and bite the hand which feeds it so generously. The better type of journalism will have none of these matters. Those of the legal profession who know—the lawyers practising in criminal law courts—must be careful not to offend so powerful an institution, whose disfavor might mean ruin. And the Bar Association ignores or postpones action. No persons in private life care to take the initiative; and perhaps they are right. It is safest not to interfere. Why then should I undertake the task? Simply because I have suffered unjustly, and have seen others suffer injustice. This is my sole warrant and authority. And in this matter I am very much in earnest.
The present state of affairs is the result of previous conditions, older methods of criminal procedure, which have been developed and expanded until at the present time they have overstepped all decency.
Let us begin at the beginning, for what I am about to describe may happen to any one. When a man is arrested the police proceed as follows: Invariably starting with protestations of sympathy and faith in their prisoner’s innocence, they make offers of help and assistance. The suspect is coaxed into a confession if possible; this is the first degree. Let us further suppose that, on his part, all guilt or knowledge is denied. Then the second degree is “worked.” Here traps will be laid for him—he will be lied to, threatened, frightened, it may be. A lawyer may now appear. He says an agonized mother has retained him to take the case; he guarantees immediate release, and is ready to hear the story. But suppose the “agonized mother” to have been dead many years, naturally his services are declined. It is well. The confidence would have been extended to a policeman. I have heard that a cassock sometimes robes the same individual on a similar errand. This “moral suasion” may be extended over even a day or two, reinforced by such pleasantries as being awakened the moment one drops asleep. Meals are “forgotten,” a drink of water is an impossibility; or liquor is plied if that will open lips. In summer a cheerful fire may burn very near the cell door; the windows are closed, one may perspire a trifle. If the season be winter, no inconvenience is felt by reason of superfluous heat. This is not denied by police officials. I believe Superintendent Byrnes describes all these methods in his book, and tells how a suspect is locked up in a cell with the instruments of the crime he is accused of having committed, or even with the “corpus delicti” itself. Proof of this method is found in that atrociously and hideously managed persecution of a young woman, in which evidence collected in this manner was offered in court—and very properly ruled out by the presiding judge. The case is too recent to be forgotten.
If the prisoner still remains obstinate, the third degree follows in due course. This is not at all the bloody affair which some fancies have painted it. The appearance of those who have just gone through the ordeal indicates nothing unusual—perhaps a little pallor and a slight derangement of the digestive organs; for to be struck in the stomach with a lusty fist enclosed within a boxing glove or beaten across the kidneys with a piece of rubber garden hose leaves no marks, that is, on the outside. No right-minded person who has experienced this will ever complain to the courts; he has no witnesses; “there is more in the closet.” I believe that the “third degree” is very seldom used unless there is almost a moral certainty that the person subjected to it is the proper one to receive this modern torture.
I have never experienced the “third degree.” To me, as to every other good citizen, the term had been a familiar one; but the details never having been made public, my impressions of this ceremony were extremely vague, until a time came when opportunities were frequent to get information regarding this matter at second-hand, decidedly the best way of obtaining it. During the exercise hours in the Tombs prison, I walked with scores of men who have gone through this initiation. For two years I asked questions of those who could not possibly be in collusion to deceive me; and as all their stories agreed, I think I have given a correct description of the three degrees. My little diary, kept all that time, contains my notes and lies before me. There was another place in which I heard about the third degree. On rainy days in the Death-Chamber at Sing Sing prison, when it was too dark to read (and there were many “gloomy” days during those two years), we whispered our experiences to one another. All my companions had been taken to Police Headquarters or to station houses when arrested. I went to the Tombs directly from the Coroner’s Court; across the “Bridge of Sighs,” or, as we call it, “The Suspension of Howls,” and there is no “third degree” practised in the Tombs.
The “third degree” is not a fixed ceremony. It is regulated to suit the individual (I do not mean his taste), and differs with the personality of the grand master. Its object is simply to promote conversation in the hope that something compromising will be said. It is almost always a success; some persons become even garrulous. No excuse or explanation is ever made for the third degree, because its use is vigorously denied by those in authority. But I do make such an excuse; there is much to be said in its favor. Guilt cannot be hunted down by innocence. You must “match cunning with guile,” “you must fight the devil with fire,” and when clubs are trumps—play them.
Take this matter home to yourself; imagine a case in which you are very much interested. Your house has been entered and all your wife’s jewelry stolen; you complain to the police. Of course, having done so, the yellow journals print a full account of the robbery, also more or less flattering fake portraits of yourself and family. Your bath-room, through which the burglar entered, is described in detail; your billiard table, library cuspidor, etc., are photographed and printed life-size in the evening editions. The next day a portrait of the pretty typewriter employed at your office is displayed, whom some lynx-eyed reporter has discovered wearing diamonds. Then everything you never did in your life is disclosed. The “journalists” take possession of your home; an old pair of slippers and a bicycle hat of bygone days are discovered. You stole the jewelry yourself, you know you did! Your hidden sins stand revealed in all their repulsiveness. The finger of sensational journalism has torn the mask of hypocrisy, so long and successfully worn, from your repellant countenance at last. Confess, miserable wretch! Pictures of Judas Iscariot, Captain Kidd, and others of their type appear in the hysterical press. They are all labelled with your name. How you will be roasted! “It is said,” etc., that on dark nights you steal forth to exhume deceased infants from their tombs—and to eat them. Are you ill-advised enough to deny this? Beware! As for the partner of your joys and sorrows, “We have it on undeniable authority,” etc., etc., that she went yachting with that gay club fellow Noah, and has been engaged to each one of his guests in turn. For a penny, “all who run may read” these romances; the only redeeming feature being that those who read do not believe. While this is going on your better half stays in her room and weeps.
The servants leave, and you have to answer the door-bell yourself and be polite(?) to the representatives of the press, who call every few moments for interviews, and who never print a word you say to them. Every tradesman you deal with sends a collector with his bill; your life insurance policies are cancelled.