The Supreme Court of Porto Rico. preme Court for settlement, before the trial courts can proceed to judgment. In the case mentioned, the municipal judge had disre garded this article of the code, and proceeded with the trial of the case without waiting for the decision of the question of jurisdiction. He was promptly prosecuted and convicted, and fined $200 and costs. Being dissatisfied, naturally enough, with the decision of the Su preme Court rendered against him, he at tacked the judges with great violence in the newspapers, and, it is said, presented charges against them to the executive authorities, not only of the Island, but of the nation. How ever, the court calmly proceeded on its way, and sent the marshal to collect the fine, which was paid under protest. Some two years ago, it may be remem bered, five men were garroted at Ponce for having murdered a Spaniard, under circum stances of great barbarity, just after the land ing of the American troops. Criminals at that time made an excuse of the unsettled condition of the country to attack everyone against whom they had any grudge, and to combine robbery and rape with murder and arson. A similar case to that of these people was brought before the Supreme Court not long since. Five men were accused of mur dering a respectable old Spaniard, of ravish ing two females belonging to his family, and of robbing his house. A party of thirty or forty had surrounded the house at night, in a remote district, and demanded entrance in the name of the American authorities. This being readily granted them, they shut the women and children up in one of the rooms, tied the five or six men belonging to the family in another room, and dragged the head of the family to an outhouse and mur dered him by strangulation, cutting off his ears, and disfiguring his body with great in dignity. They then ravished the women and gutted the house. Five of them only were
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identified, and were convicted in the District Court at Ponce by a vote of two to one, of the three judges composing that court. The case was, of course, appealed to the Supreme Court of the Island and considered with great attention. One of the judges being sick, only four sat at the hearing. The judgment of the District Court was affirmed by a vote of three to one, the dissenting judge basing his opinion on the fact that one of the judges below had dissented, and that the old Spanish law required three judges to concur in fixing the death penalty. Under the Spanish code, in a capital case, after the affirmation of the judgment by the Supreme Court, the case must be referred to the fiscal (assistant attorney general), for his exami nation and report as to whether or not any circumstances attending the case justify a recommendation to the Governor for clem ency. This course was followed, and the fiscal reported that the crime had been com mitted with circumstances of unusual bar barity, and that there was nothing whatever in the record justifying any recommendation for clemency. With this recommendation of the fiscal the two American judges con curred, but the two Porto Rican judges, in cluding the one who dissented, who had participated in the trial, joined in a letter to the Governor, recommending the commuta tion of the death sentence from capital pun ishment to imprisonment for life. Applica tions for pardon, from all over the island, have been pouring in by hundreds to the Executive office. The Governor has not yet considered the matter sufficiently to deter mine whether executive clemency should be exercised. Another interesting case was that of a tax gatherer and a notary. The tax collector had been appointed under the military gov ernment, to collect the taxes in four different townships, and required to give a bond in
