this woman, and may do so with perfect safety, because, if I am indicted for it, I will plead guilty and in that case no penalty can be inflicted.'" It will be observed that this involves absolute immunity from punishment for all murders committed between February 21; 1883, and March 13, 1885, since it can hardly be supposed that anyone charged with that crime would plead not guilty, on the chance of securing a result which might be certainly secured by pleading guilty. The proposition is certainly a startling one—nay, more, it is shocking; and if true, would be a bitter reproach, indeed, to the legislature which enacted such a law; because, however dire the result, it must be presumed that the legislature intended to do just what they have by legal enactment accomplished, and hence, in this case, that they intended that murder, however atrocious, should go unpunished.
If such was their intention, they certainly might have effected it by much simpler means. A bare repeal of Section 249 of the Penal Code would have been entirely sufficient. But on the other hand, we are not to presume any such intention. We are not to conclude that the legislature designed to withdraw from society legal protection against this most awful crime, unless for the amplest and most convincing reasons, unless, indeed, we are driven to such a conclusion by considerations which are irresistible.
We are quite mindful of all that has been said and written by humane and enlightened jurists concerning the sacredness with which the law regards the rights and privileges of those charged with crime, especially when such charge involves the life of the accused. We are not ignorant that very many criminals have escaped punishment upon grounds which to the non-professional mind have seemed mere technicalities; nor do we desire to question the wisdom of the rule which declares that society must ascertain and punish offenders against its laws only under and through those regular forms which constitute what is known as "due process of law." But even these considerations, just and salutary though they are must have a limit, and it becomes those who are
