The Shameful Miscarriage of Justice

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 3, 1907

The Shameful Miscarriage of Justice

Through the prophet Isaiah a time is described when “justice is turned away backward, and righteousness standeth afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and uprightness can not enter.” Those who are willing to face the facts as they exist in this country are forced to the conclusion that this indictment applies with peculiar accuracy to our own times. In justification of this statement we call attention to a significant article which appeared in the November number of The World’s Work, with the title which we have quoted above. This article is of considerable length, and is a scathing arraignment of the present system of administering justice, opening with this sentence: “The figure of Justice blindfolded seems eminently fitting in this day, not that she may distribute her favors with even hand, but that she may be spared the sight of the crimes committed in her name.” In order to give our readers an intelligent idea of this remarkable contribution to an influential magazine we quote quite a portion of it as follows:—

The rules of procedure and our system of appeals, together with the ingenuity of counsel in cases where the accused possesses means, have served to prolong issues through a series of trivial questions and consequent delays, with the result that justice, when not actually defeated, is shamefully retarded. In this country the cases of prompt justice are well-nigh limited to instances of mob violence—frightful protests against the delays and disappointments due to the intricacies and defects of our legislation and the follies of our justice.

What with demurrers, continuances, appeals, reprieves, and pardons, the guilty man with cash and “pull” so disfigures justice as to render her unrecognizable. By such means cases are dragged along for months and years, even after conviction, before the actual execution of the sentence. Criminal justice is thus robbed of much of its terror, for speed and certainty of punishment do more to prevent crime than does severity of punishment. Thus we find that crimes multiply at an astounding rate, and convictions decrease in disheartening ratio.

It is the custom among powerful corporations in this country, especially those whose business subjects them to personal-injury suits, to “wear out” their opponents. This is a comparatively easy matter under the present system of court procedure. Take the case brought by a poor man, the sole support of a family, against a street railway for injuries received at its hands. His creditors press him for payments which he can not make. His suit is “passed” from term to term of court. When brought to trial, in the course of two or three years, let us suppose he secures a verdict. The railway company promptly carries the case to the court of appeals, and often to the still higher courts. Meanwhile the demands of the plaintiff’s creditors and the exigencies of life force him to accept a settlement wholly out of proportion to the damages. Examples of such oppression, under the mantle of the law, might be offered by the score.

The prisoner without money or friends, and the prisoner rich in both, present striking contrasts. Our courts and officials seem less inclined to proportion justice to the magnitude of the offense than to considerations of the “previous estate” of the criminal. The “third degree,” the “sweat-box,” and other barbaric methods of modern police are habitually visited upon the prisoner destitute of money and friends. None of the “aristocracy of crime” is ever subjected to these forms of torture. On the contrary, the members of the “upper class” are treated with consideration, even deference, and sometimes by courts as well as by police. If the “third degree” were applied to a thieving financier, the whole country would cry out in rage, and that feature of police practise would soon follow into oblivion the “boot” and the rack.

In October of last year, two federal courts were in session—one in the city of Chicago, another in a small town of western Kentucky. A case in each court was called for trial.

In the Kentucky court before the bar of justice stood a tall, lithe, bronzed mountaineer, stolid and sullen. In the back of the room was seated his wife, a pale woman, her face pinched and drawn, with four thinly clad, disconsolate

late children—awaiting the climax of the tragedy. In some little valley back in the cold, hard mountains, the year before, this man and woman had struggled bravely with the problem of existence. The expense of transporting their small crop of corn to market was great; so it had been turned into whisky, in a still hidden in a mountain recess. No bond had been executed to the United States for the operation of this industry; the government tax had not been paid. The nation had been deprived of a few dollars of revenue—that was the burden of his offense.

In Chicago, the vice-president of a large packing company was on trial for conspiracy to violate the interstate commerce law against the granting or accepting of railroad rebates. He had violated a criminal statute. He had connived with railroad officials. He had taken criminal advantage of his competitors, as a result of which they were compelled to forego the business of slaughtering cattle or handling dressed beef. An entire nation had been defrauded. This defendant had left his palatial home in New York the day before, had traveled in a Pullman car, and had stopped at the most exclusive hotel in Chicago. The ablest lawyer of the Chicago bar stood ready to plead his case. The attorneys representing the United States had held a “conference” with the prisoner’s counsel the hour previous, and “matters had been arranged.” His wife and children were under no necessity of altering their daily routine. Yet the United States had spent thousands of dollars to bring him before the tribunal. Such cases furnish eloquent testimony of the inequity of justice that threatens our national career.

On the twelfth of January of this year two prisoners were received at the penitentiary at Columbus, Ohio—Mrs. Cassie Chadwick and John Shannon. Mrs. Chadwick wrecked banks, stole over one million dollars, and forged notes for thirteen million dollars. Poverty, suicide, and disgrace followed in the wake of her crimes. Shannon stole a duck last Thanksgiving day that he might have a good meal. To commit the theft he had broken into a store. Shannon must serve until Jan. 13, 1911. Ten months later Mrs. Chadwick is to be discharged.

In one of our largest penitentiaries are confined twelve former bankers. Apart from the disgrace and the restriction to the vicinity of the prison, there is small difference between the banker convicts and the man outside the walls. They go about with much the same liberty as the officials; they chat with each other and their keepers, while the “ordinary prisoners” are forbidden to open their mouths except to receive the prison food. They move about the prison in an authoritative manner; they dictate not alone to the other prisoners, but even to the officials. These bankers who were “big men” before their infamy, are still big men in their relations to the prison officials, respected rather than subjected, feared rather than fearing. They all fill clerical positions and enjoy numerous privileges. One is clerk in the office of the secretary, others are clerks in the office of the warden, in the post-office, in the hospital, in the steward’s office, in the cigar shop, and so on throughout the list.

There can be no question that intellectual crimes, as opposed to mere coarse, brutal violations of law, are on the increase. I mean forgeries, embezzlements, and huge swindles requiring brains, resources, and nerve. The dangerous tendency of crime in these days is toward oppression and murder by a system under which no one can be held responsible by law. Professor James, the eminent psychologist, has said: “Though education frees us from the more brutal forms of crime, it is true that education itself has put even meaner forms of crime in our way. The intellect is a servant of our passions, and sometimes education only makes the person more adroit in carrying out these impulses.”

The educated lawbreaker is capable of doing infinitely more harm than the ignorant criminal. His power for harm is multiplied by his knowledge. The educated man who constantly transgresses the moral law and ignores the ethics of his relations to the state is the worst enemy of society. Burglars and highwaymen prowl about the streets and prey on citizens, but they always run their chances of being captured, and organized society is not greatly harmed—its existence is not even threatened.

The spirit of this condition was well expressed by the remarks of Judge Foster in sentencing a man for complicity in stealing a policy from the vaults of a certain insurance company: “Your methods were very crude and bungling. If you had, instead of colluding with an outsider, colluded with an insider, and thereby had your salary raised to fifty thousand dollars, and then divided with the other man, the result would not have been more hurtful to policy-holders, but possibly you would not have been at the bar of justice.” . . .

Statistics of crime reveal startling truths. They show that the United States stands pre-eminent among the civilized and progressive nations in its catalogue of lawlessness. A tabulated series of such sinister statistics, recently prepared, shows that in seven years, beginning with and including 1894, there were more than 62,000 murders and homicides in the Union—nearly 9,000 a year—and only 871 legal executions. Less than 2 per cent of the whole number of lawless slayers has paid the extreme penalty of their crimes. In the period between 1881 and 1903 there were 129,464 murders and criminal homicides, balanced by but 2,611 judicial executions. These figures show a rapid increase of murders in proportion to the population, but no appreciable increase in the number of executions.