Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 22.pdf/499

 The Revolt Against Empiricism in the Criminal Law contribution to the vexed question of the plea of insanity with reference to the crime of homicide. Frederick W. Griﬁin of the New York City bar writes a vivid article on the Thaw trial, in which he eloquently por trays the absurd situations of this travesty of the court room. It is not with the sub stantive law of homicide, however, that he

is so much concerned as with the effect of a plea of insanity on practice, and the position in which it leaves the prisoner who seeks a writ of habeas corpus armed with an acquittal on the ground of insanity. He urges that the verdict of acquittal should be so framed in our courts as to make such a procedure impossible, as in England. He thus advo cates no departure from the common law doctrine that an insane person cannot be guilty of murder. The substantive law of punishment does not receive direct consideration in any of these articles, but it can conﬁdently be anti cipated that this important ﬁeld will not be neglected, in view of the interest which has been aroused by such problems as those of probation and parole and the indeterminate sentence.

An to be which three

exceedingly fruitful ﬁeld is of course found in the adjective law of crime, it is perhaps proper to divide into stages: (1) detection and prosecution

473

following: (a) system for recording data of criminals, (b) drugs and intoxicants, (a) probation, parole, pardon, and inde terminate sentence, (d) organization of courts, (e) criminal procedure. Of these questions, that of the improve ment of procedure is no doubt recognized as paramount. The chairman of the com mittee appointed for this investigation is Professor Roscoe Pound of the University of Chicago, than whom no man in this country has made a more profound study of the problems of procedure or writes of them with greater authority; and his associates are Judge Albert C. Barnes of Chicago, Frederick Bausman of Seattle, Prof. William E. Mikell of Philadelphia, and Prof. Howard L. Smith of Madison, Wis.

A sub-committee

was appointed to investigate and report on the methods of procedure in Europe, par ticularly in Great Britain. This sub-com mittee, most of the members of which are now in England, consists of Everett P. Wheeler of New York, Prof. James W. Garner, Prof. Edwin Keedy, Prof. John D. Lawson, Prof. Charles R. Henderson, Judge Marcus A. Kavanagh of Chicago, and Gino C. Speranza of New York. The personnel of this committee is not only such as to assure hopeful results, but also promises eﬁective co-operation with

up to the time of the trial, (2) procedure at

the American Bar Association, in the delib

the trial, up to conviction, and (3) procedure after conviction, or penological treatment. In the ﬁrst division we are brought face to face with such problems as those of the treat ment of accused persons under detention, indemniﬁcation for wrongful detention, bu reaus of identiﬁcation, the "third degree," and possibly every problem of police admin istration. In the second, there are such ques tions to be investigated as those of public

berations of which several of the members have borne an active part, on the Special Committee to Suggest Remedies and Form ulate Proposed Laws to Prevent Delay and Unnecessary Cost in Litigation. One mem ber, john D. Lawson, who is editor of the American Law Review as well as Dean of the law department of the University of

defenders,

the

selection and

treatment

of

jurors, improvement of the jury system, simpliﬁcation of pleading, restrictions on the right of appeal, reversals for technical errors, enlargement of the power of the judge, medical expert testimony, etc. In the third some of the problems awaiting solution are the classiﬁcation of prisoners, the parole system, prison administration, the treatment of the insane in houses of detention, etc. The foregoing were among the one hundred and thirty-ﬁve subjects presented for dis cussion at the Chicago conference, from which

it was decided to select, as forming the prin

cipal topics for the ﬁrst year's work, the

Missouri,

contributes

to the

ﬁrst

number

of the journal a strong paper on technical ities in procedure, in which he reviews the objectionable practices that have grown up, and makes a vigorous argument for the adoption of the remedies proposed by the American Bar Association. This helpful spirit will impress itself upon all the investi

gators of the Institute and lend to the recom mendations of the American Bar Associ ation added weight. The improvement of methods with regard to the admission of medical expert testi mony furnishes the subject for a thoughtful and suggestive paper by Justice Schoﬁeld of the Massachusetts Superior Court. Justice Schoﬁeld insistently opposes the plan for