NO ONE WILL CENSURE.
Gratitude for Judge field's Escape the Chief Sentiment.
Deputy Marshal Neagle acted with terrible promptitude in protecting the venerable member of the Supreme Court with whose safety he was specially charged, but few will be inclined to censure him. He had to deal with a man of fierce temper, whose readiness to use firearms was part of the best known history of California.
It is a subject for general congratulation that Justice Field escaped the violence of his assailant. The American nation would be shocked to learn that a judge of its highest tribunal could not travel without danger of assault from those whom he had been compelled to offend by administering the laws. Justice Field has the respect due his office and that deeper and more significant reverence produced by his character and abilities. Since most of the present generation were old enough to observe public affairs he has been a jurist of national reputation and a sitting member of the Supreme Court. In that capacity he has earned the gratitude of his countrymen by bold and unanswerable defense of sound constitutional interpretation on more than one occasion. In all the sad affair the most prominent feeling will be that of gratitude at his escape.
The Army and Navy Journal, in its issue of August 24, 1889, had the following article under the head of—
MARSHAL NEAGLE'S CRIME.
The public mind appears to be somewhat unsettled upon the question of the right of Neagle to kill Terry while assaulting Judge Field. His justification is as clear as is the benefit of his act to a long-suffering community. Judge Field was assaulted unexpectedly from behind, while seated at a dining-table, by a notorious assassin and ruffian, who had sworn to kill him, and who, according to the testimony of at least one witness, was armed with a long knife, had sent his wife for a pistol, and was intending to use it as soon as obtained. * * *
The rule is that the danger which justifies homicide in self-defense must be actual and urgent. And was it not so in this case? No one who reflects upon the features of the case—an old man without means of defense, fastened in a sitting posture by the table at which he sat and the chair he occupied, already smitten with one severe blow and about to receive another more severe from a notorious ruffian who had publicly avowed his intention to slay him—no one surely can deny that the peril threatening Judge Field was both actual and urgent in the very highest degree.
"A man may repel force by force in the defense of his person, habitation, or property, against one or many who manifestly intend and endeavor by violence or surprise to commit a known felony on either." "In such a case he is not obliged to retreat, but may pursue his adversary till he find himself out of danger; and if in a conflict between them he happens to kill, such killing is justifiable. The right of self-defense in case of this kind is founded on the law of nature, and is not, nor can be, superseded by any law of society. Where a known felony is attempted upon the person, be it to rob or murder, the party assaulted may repel force by force; and even his servant attendant on him, or any person present, may interpose for preventing mischief, and, if death ensue, the party interposing will be justified." (Wharton Amer. Crim. Law, Vol. 2, Sec. 1019.)
This is the law, as recognized at the present day and established by centuries of precedent, and it completely exonerates Neagle—of course Judge Field needs no exoneration—from any, the least, criminality in what he did. He is acquitted of wrong-doing, not only in his character of attendant servant, but in that of bystander simply. He was as much bound to kill Terry under the circumstances as every bystander in the room was bound to kill him; and in his capacity of guard, especially appointed to defend an invaluable life against a known and imminent felony, he was so bound in a much greater degree.