Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 18.pdf/630

 THE JURISPRUDENCE OF LAWLESSNESS the stake. The wound inflicted upon the law and upon society is even deeper and more ghastly. The flagrant violation and open defiance of law involved in the prac tice sets all law and authority at naught. It degrades the courts, debases the adminis tration of justice, brings judges, juries, and lawyers all into contempt and strikes at the very roots of all social order. One of the most deplorable results of such open and violent infractions of the law is their baleful educational influence. Apart from their evil influence upon the formation of the character of the youth of the country, apart from the fact that men who have participated in such an execution have now stained their hands with human blood and will be all the more ready to share in other executions of the same kind, these men who have done this and escaped punishment, and even heard themselves applauded for it, are apt to think that, if they have in this case administered justice so much better than the courts, they are able to do equally as well in all other cases, and that the courts of justice are mere useless survivals of an effete and decadent civilization which may as well be abolished or, at least, entirely ignored. Thus the road to anarchy is opened wide with the gaunt, grim figure of the red specter grinning in the distance. In view of the utter fiendishness of the crime, some of us might be willing to waive even these potent objections to lynch law if it were effective to prevent the crime; but it is not. Experience has clearly dem onstrated that it has absolutely no deterrent effect. If, then, lynch law is an unmixed evil and utterly ineffective to prevent repetitions of the crimes it punishes, why is it that it is tolerated and even approved and applauded in so many highly organized, highly civi lized and thoroughly refined communities in our country? The question is pertinent, and it will be necessary to find the true answer before we can hope to discover the remedy. The ready answer of the apolo

591

gists for lynch law is that to require the victim to testify in open court to the facts necessary to convict is to repeat the outrage. In the case of a pure and modest woman, this is unquestionably a powerful argument; but the men who string up the fiend in human shape, or riddle his body with bul lets, or burn the cringing wretch at the stake are not spurred to this frenzied action by any such consideration; such a logical argument comes in cooler moments as an after-thought. It is their overwhelming horror at the unspeakable fiendishness of the crime and their clear conviction that no punishment now provided by law is ade quate to expiate it that sends the red blood pulsing from the surging heart to the heated brain, there to cry aloud for vengeance, that brooks no delay and demands sure, swift, and sudden death as the only atone ment. Any remedy for lynching, to be effective, must remove all excuse for it, otherwise it will be merely a remedy for symptoms of the malady, and foredoomed to ignomini ous failure. The proof of certain brutal facts, now required by law, must be dis pensed with, and the attempt, accompanied by actual personal violence, must constitute the crime. In the case of any pure and modest woman, the outrage to her feelings is completed by such an attempt, and the crime also should be -held to be then com pleted. The testimony of witnesses should be taken in camera, in the presence of the accused and counsel and such persons only as the judge may admit to the hearing. The testimony, when taken, should be held inviolate, as is now done in certain divorce cases in some of the states. The publication of sensational reports of the proceedings in court should be prohibited by law. The trial should be speedy, and there should be no appeal. The judgment of the court should be instantly executed. Attempts and the personal violence that accompanies them vary so greatly with the