Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 22.pdf/747

 The Editor's Bag the rights of accused persons. The bench in England is no more superior

713

CONTEMPTS BY NEWSPAPERS

to the Constitution than with us, and

NE of many instructive incidents

there could be no menace to our free institutions in swifter and surer justice. Until a generation ago, England was

mary inﬂiction of a heavy ﬁne for con tempt on one newspaper which had

suﬁering, as we are, from the evils of

published matter relevant to the merits

an archaic

of the case. In this country this power of the court is but rarely exercised, but

procedure.

and

needlessly

artiﬁcial

The speed with which the

of the Crippen trial was the sum

there is nothing in our law or institutions evil was discovered and the promptitude with which it was remedied, are difﬁcult to understand in this country, where the

to prevent its being employed with nearly if not quite the same vigor.

obstacles

A few heavy ﬁnes might do something toward lessening the abuse of the trial

to

reform

seem

inﬁnitely

various and complicated. But England was not the only common law country

to undertake the reform.

Canada and

Australia followed suit, and the present

position of the United States, in its blind worship of the older procedure, is anomalous among free Anglo-Saxon peoples.

The existing system serves

of cases in advance'of the actual deter mination of the merits, by our great metropolitan press, and would lend in creased dignity to the administration of the criminal law in this country.

INSANITY AS A GROUND

to beneﬁt no one, except those lawyers pecuniarily interested in burlesquing

FOR

DIVORCE

the administration of justice and in

N the hearing of testimony before

lowering the standards of professional ethics, and is a form of despotism to which the American people should not

expert witnesses were recently heard for and against the advisability of mak

longer submit.

Once invest our judiciary with the power which will enable it to determine

the English Divorce Commission,

ing permanent insanity a ground of di vorce. Sir Montague Crackanthorpe oﬁered the opinion that it was dangerous

causes speedily on their merits, and

to the public welfare for the state to

the other evils incident to the present system will rapidly disappear. It will be unnecessary to appoint additional judges, for the courts will quickly catch up with their arrears, and the evil of

encourage the renewal of married life

conditions.

congested

perhaps,

it would seem to follow that the police

more than any other to deprive the

power of the state should assert itself to dissolve marriage when either party can be proved to be permanently insane. We believe that this would be going too

dockets,

serving,

accused of his constitutional right to

“a speedy and public tria," will exist no longer. The subject is one which bar associations need to urge more

insistently than ever on the attention of legislatures. The initiative of the bar is the chief and perhaps the only agency through which the needed reforms can be brought about.

between a sane and an insane person, and that it was for the public good that the marriage-tie be severed under such

If that is sound reasoning,

far, and that with regard to insanity, at least, the common sense view is that the happiness of the parties and purity of the marriage relation are to be con

sidered paramount to the interest of the state in the issue of such marriages.

It