Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 2.djvu/250

232 argument of my friend and predecessor, Governor Foster, who claimed that this pledge would greatly assist a man to reform, would make it on his lips a valid excuse to avoid drinking if tempted. I am anything but sure about this, and have been greatly disturbed in mind by the failure of these two cases out of, say, twenty cases in which I tried the experiment.

"The importance of conditional pardons has been very much lessened in Ohio, however, by the adoption, in 1885, partly (I am happy to say) at my instance, of the English ticket-of-leave, or parole system. Any of your readers curious to follow the subject will find the Ohio law establishing the power of parole, and defining the method of its exercise, in 3 Williams Revised Statutes, p. 773, et seq. The parole system is in substance this : The directors of the penitentiary are authorized in the case of any convict who has served the minimum term, to which he might have been sentenced, it being his first term, to parole the prisoner for the unexpired residue of the term, that is to say, to let him go physically free. Theoretically, he is still in custody. If, at any time, it seems necessary or important, he may be recaptured and brought back at the instance of the directors upon a warrant issued by them to the warden.

"Practically, these paroles are freely granted to well-behaved prisoners whose friends provide employment for them, and in whose cases there seems to be assurance of a better life if they are allowed to mix once more with the community. They are required by the rules of the prison to report their whereabouts and prospects, monthly. They are not permitted to use intoxicating liquors in any way. The system has only been in force three years, but I believe that in the judgment of all who have been connected with penal administration in Ohio (and I know in my own), it is a very great success.

"It has diminished the labors of the governor and his associates (there is now an advisory pardon board in Ohio) very greatly, for the reason that in nine cases out of ten where pardon is solicited it is much more prudent to grant parole and test the ability of the prisoner to resist temptation, before delivering him entirely, or conditionally even, by the pardon or commutation from the effect of the sentence and its imputed guilt.

"This system of parole, being applicable only to first-term prisoners who have already served the minimum provided by law for the punishment of such crimes, leaves open to the governor and his board the use of the conditional sentence as a method of assisting the prisoner or the State, as the case may be, in all cases of life sentences, second and more term prisoners, and other prisoners who have not yet served the minimum.

"Practically, though not legally, the pardoning power in Ohio is now exercised only in one of these three classes of cases.

"While I am on this subject I may as well add that there is a curious case in the annals of Ohio jurisprudence upon the exercise of the power of commutation. Mrs. Sarah M. Victor, who was finally pardoned last year by the present governor of Ohio, Governor Foraker, was, in 1868, convicted of murder in the first degree, at Cleveland, Ohio. While under sentence of death. Governor Hayes commuted her punishment to imprisonment in the penitentiary for life. She was either really or professedly insane at this time, and not in condition to give