In any case the demoralizing effects of lynch law are so great, and I might say, so shocking, that any system which seems to make such a law necessary as a consequence of its own defects ought to be revised, so as to put an end to that terrible practice.1 Per haps lynching is not only due to the imper fections of the jury system, but also to the imperfect system of procedure, that caused delays in bringing about a trial, and often to the chicane and deficient preparation of the prosecuting officer. The jury system, as applied to criminal cases, is undoubtedly more favorable to the accused than to society.2 That it has faults is evident from the fact that some of the Hill, was mortally wounded in an affray, and Gaspar Mierhaus, a miner who was in the adjoining room to the saloon came out to help Sears, there being no witness to that in cident. Moreno and Stemler were suspected of having committed the crime and were consequently arrested. Mierhaus died of his wounds some days afterwards, and there was contradictory information as to whether he iden tified Moreno or not, as some said that he had, and others that he had said the assassin had a beard, Moreno having none. Before the preliminary examination took place, which had been fixed for the 26th of August, a mob attacked the jail, took out four prisoners, including Moreno, and lynched them all. When this lynching was reported in the papers, a man who would not give his name for fear of being prose cuted, addressed a letter to the San Francisco Examiner, signing it John Doe, published by that paper in its issue of November 29 of that year, in which he confessed that he was the only author of the deed, and that he had killed Sears in self defense, Moreno being thus exonerated from all participation in the crime. 1 The extent lynching has reached in the United States is truly appalling. From data contained in a re|X>rt from the Committee of the Judiciary of the House of Representa tives (Number 108, 54th Congress, 1st Session), presented by Mr. Thomas Updegraff of Iowa, on January 22, 1896, containing several tables of homicides perpetrated in the United States, it appears (Table number 3) that during 1895 tnere were 132 legal executions and 171 lynchings out of 10,500 homicides. 2 The report just quoted of the Committee of the Judici ary of the House of Representatives, which contains several tables, compiled by the Department of Justice, of homicides perpetrated in the United States of which cognizance was taken by the Federal judicial authorites, staling the num ber of indictments, convictions and acquittals, shows (Table number 2) that in the year 1892 from 29 judicial Federal districts, the Federal judicial authorities took cog nizance of 112 homicides, of which 96 were indicted, 24 of the accused being convicted, 37 acquitted, and only one ex ecution having taken place.
States of this Union, like Maryland, for in stance, have enacted statutes allowing the accused to select whether he shall be tried by jury or by a judge, and this, notwith standing the constitutional provision on the subject. I regard that provision as the first step to undermine the jury system.1 lThe Bar Association of Texas had its last (1896) an nual convention at Galveston, and both the speeches de livered and the resolutions adopted show very clearly the inefficiency of the criminal system of jurisprudence in that State; and his remarks apply also to the criminal jurispru dence under the common law. Mr. F. W. Ball of Fort Worth read a paper before the Association which was most emphatic in its arraignment of the existing system. " What can I say," he asked, " when I speak of our criminal law and procedure? Can I do aught but voice the general sentiment of the people, and say that it is a stench in the nostrils of every honest ami law-abiding man in Texas? " He complained that " the sol icitude of the courts for the constitution and the bill of rights is such that they adjudge them to be invaded every time a red-handed murderer or a highway robber is con victed without observing all the formalities and niceties re quisite under our beautifully complicated system of criminal procedure"; and he declared that the decisions of the criminal appellate tribunal in hundreds of cases, by which known and notoriously guilty persons have escaped punish ment, " fully and completely demonstrate one or the other of these two propositions, namely, that our criminal law is entirely insufficient for the purpose of preventing and pun ishing crime, or that the courts who have delivered the opin ions in these cases are utterly imbecile and ignorant." In speaking of practice and procedure in civil cases Mr. Ball declared that proper words of denunciation failed him, for the reason that " every kind of proceeding that is obso lete, every kind of method that is expensive, every kind of device that is dilatory or open to trickery, every kind of pleading and writ that is confusing and incomprehensible, is here foregathered for the benefit of the shyster lawyer, the greedy official and the dilatory judge, and to the com plete destruction of the miserable litigant." Judge Simkins showed that a large proportion of these evils would have been avoided if the Legislature had done its duty when the present appellate system was established by that body. A striking address was delivered by Judge E. J. Simkins of Corsicana. He enunciated the central truth, so often overlooked, that " the great aim of all judicial procedure is to administer substantial justice," and he declared that, "when this result is accomplished, though errors are com mitted not injuriously affecting the real merits of the cause, the judgment ought to be affirmed." Judge Simkins held that it is of still greater importance in criminal than in civil cases that the controlling question should be the guilt or innocence of the defendant of the charge preferred, since criminal judgments more immedi ately affect the people, and therefore excite more comment than civil, and consequently whatever reasons exist for
