Failure of Justice by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 31, 1872

Failure of Justice.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

IMMORALITY and general wickedness were to be signs of the end. Matt. 24:37-39; Gen. 6:5. The prophet particularly specifies the failure of justice and truth just before the Redeemer shall come to Zion. He says: “Therefore is judgment far from us, neither does justice overtake us.” And again: “And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.” Isa. 59:9, 14. He then says that the Lord saw this and was angry at it; that he put on his garments of vengeance, and the Redeemer came to Zion, &c. Verses 15–20.

Every one at all conversant with public affairs must see that such is the present condition of things in our day. The following from a leading journal of the land is as good a comment on this text as could be asked:—

“THE FAILURE OF JUSTICE.”

“In ancient times, places specially consecrated by religion, as churches and the like, were sometimes set apart as sanctuaries for criminals. Within their precincts, even the traitor or murderer was safe alike from private vengeance and from the law. So it not unfrequently happened that the church became literally a den of thieves.

“We have among us a similar case. We have an institution sacred to men's minds as the guardian of society, but which is becoming a shelter for society's worst foes. That institution is the law.

“The Jewish ‘City of Refuge’ shielded the accused from private vengeance till he could be dealt with by an impartial judge. But the perverted copy of this, the mediæval ‘sanctuary,’ gave absolute immunity to whoever remained within its walls. In like manner, the civil law has aimed, by a hundred devices, to guard the accused person against the effects of passion and prejudice; but, in our communities, it has overdone its work, and constantly shelters the culprit from justice itself. The law is becoming the protector of crime.

“A few days ago, a peculiarly atrocious murder was committed in this city. The universal comment of the public was, that the murderer would, of course, escape punishment; and this, though to present appearance the crime was wholly without extenuation, either in the immediate circumstances, or in the murderer's previous character. But the public has learned by experience what to expect in such a case. It foresees, at every stage of the legal proceedings, loopholes arranged as if the express aim of the law was the prisoner's acquittal. It foresees the selection of a jury by the qualification of stolid ignorance. It foresees the probable foisting upon such a jury of some preposterous theory of insanity, and their bewilderment by endless medical jargon. It knows that the witnesses will be badgered, and insulted, and tortured, in a way to distort, quite as much as to clarify, their evidence. It knows that, under cover of a technical plea of insanity, or self-defense, or what not, the dead will be aspersed, and a maudlin sympathy for the supposed wrongs of the murderer be aroused; that a thousand technical confusions will be wrapped round the case; that the judge must follow principles of law constructed to favor the accused; that the final decision of the thrice-tangled question must be made, not by clear judicial minds, but by twelve men of less than average intelligence; and that only their unanimous agreement can convict the prisoner. Above all, the public, taught by experience, foresees as the probable issue of the whole, the ultimate acquittal of any murderer who is rich enough to employ skillful counsel.

“Not even with the process we have described, do the prisoner's chances end. During the trial, his lawyer will probably raise a host of technical exceptions to the judge's rulings. If the verdict is adverse, he will obtain a stay of proceedings until these exceptions can be passed on by a higher court. If that finds any flaw in the decisions of the first judge, a new trial is ordered; the same list of chances is again open to the prisoner, and the process may be repeated indefinitely.

“The same daily paper which records the murder of O'Neil by King contains two other items which illustrate this last point. We read that the supreme court has ordered new trials in two well-known cases, on the ground of exceptions taken by counsel and now sustained by this court. The first case is that of Rosenzweig, accused of being the chief criminal in a ‘trunk murder’ that shocked the community more than a year ago. This man had, in spite of the law's delays, been convicted, receiving the light sentence of seven years' imprisonment. He is now to receive a second trial. We do not pronounce on his guilt; we simply note the fact that, on secondary and technical grounds, absolutely indefinite chances of escape are offered to those against whom there is the heaviest moral presumption of guilt.

“The other case is still more noteworthy. There are in this city a class of desperadoes, individually well known as habitual criminals—not pickpockets and such small fry, but burglars and assassins—who go most of the time scot free. Such a one is ‘Reddy the Blacksmith,’ who may fairly be called a habitual murderer. Every few months, he furnishes the reporters with a paragraph by some outrageous assault; yet he walks the streets of New York as freely as Rob Roy did the Highlands. A less eminent gentleman of this fraternity, known as ‘Dutch Heinrich,’ whose specialty is robbery on a large scale, was, by some strange accident, convicted a few months since of the theft of some bonds, and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. In this same paper—the New York Herald of Nov. 19—we read that in this case, too, a new trial has just been ordered. Apparently, Mr. Heinrich may not unreasonably hope to be soon restored to his congenial haunts and pursuits.”

If the escape of great criminals through the meshes of the law were highly exceptional, it might be set down to the necessary imperfection of human affairs, and to the law's wise leaning to mercy's side. But, in this city, and to some extent throughout the Union, such escapes are not exceptional; they are characteristic. The public expects King to escape punishment because it remembers how many other murderers have recently escaped; because the great criminals of the ring have thus far gone unpunished; because, in a word, our legal machinery has been proved wholly inadequate to deal with the crimes that are most dangerous to society.”

D. M. CANRIGHT