Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 233, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 October 1911 — COURTS PRAISED NOW COME IN FOR CENSURE [ARTICLE]

COURTS PRAISED NOW COME IN FOR CENSURE

London—(Special)— A few months ago when an English court rtuiroaoeq Dr. H. H. Crippen to the gallows, there was an outburst of admiration at British methods of handling criminal cases. Not only were they commended in England, but many Americans pointed out that the United States would gain immensely by imthem more closely. The few individuals who voiced the opinion that English criminal courts are much more Interested in convicting people who have done something tc be victed for, were speedily pooh-poohed into silence. Weil, the Crippen case was handled along typically English lines. The trial was hustled through at top speed. The prisoner was convicted and sentenced. He appealed and lost his appeal He asked for a pardon and a pardon was refused. He was hanged. Then the English Law Society set out to do a little investigating. In due course the investigators reported that Solicitor Arthur Newton, Crippen’s legal advisor was guilty of professional misconduct tn connection with his handling of the case. On the strength of this report a bench of judges consisting of Lord Chief Justice Alverstone and Justices Darling jnd Banks suspended New top from practice for one year. la signifying his concurrence in his fellow judges' opinion of Newton’s conduct, Justice Darling volunteered a few supplementary remarks. “It seems to me,” he said, “that this case discloses a very grave state of things, absolutely inconsistent with the public advantage. Crippen was obviously guilty and no one could have any doubt about it But even the greatest criminal is entitled to have his case considered from first to last with the sole view of his own interests and not with a view to making business for ether people. - The whole of the circumstances which have come out satisfy me that Crippen was not from first to last defended as he should have been. His case was conducted very largely for the purpose of making copy for the newspapers which bad contributed money for his defense.

’*That a solicitor should lend himself to this kind of practice is a very grave offense. Thg evil of such conduct must be patent to everybody. The whole circumstances of the case were absolutely inconsistent with decent conduct on the part of those who took part in the proceedings. One of them happens to be a solicitor. He muet be punished. The others are not within the jurisdiction of this court, but to my mind, they deserve to be punished too. If the judgment on Newton errs at all, it errs on the side, of leniency." It is, a pretty safe conclusion that Justice Darling, strongly as he spoke, did not say all he had tn mind.‘There YWS reason* for fopreoslbn table pan. Afim ItagHeh fod*e, ft was natural for him to hesitate to indulge In a too severe criticism of English courts. Newton, too, 4*.more than suspected of knowing things to the extreme discredit of persons in *uch high positions at court as to have much influence even upon th* bench. If crowded too-far, it was whispered that he intended to make these things public. Finally, sitting an. tbe same bench with Justice Darling was Lord Chief Justice Al verstone,, who presided St the Crippen trial. As chief justice, Lord Alverstone has much to do with shaping the futures of the Justices who are subordinate to him, Justice Darling among them. Thus, it would plainly have been dangerous for Justice Darling to go into unpleasant details concerning a trial in . which his superior took, perhaps next to Crippen most conspicuous part What Justice Darling undoubtedly really meant was substantially this: Certain London newspapers paid Newton for conducting Crippen’s defense. They put up money, not out of consideration for Crippen, but because they wanted a kind of corner in news of what was bound to prove a most sensational case. Neither an acquittal nor a conviction would have furnished these papers with any news which other papers could not get quite as well as they, in open court. But a confession, following - a conviction might easily have been handed over exclusively to the papers which were paytag -for Newton’s services. Did the amaxing Inefficiency of the Crippen defense indicate that Newton had deliberately decided that his client must be convicted to suit the interests of hi* own employers? The circumstances certainly seem to point to such a conclusion. > > Having been convicted, however, Crippen refused to confess. This was embarrassing for Newton. Without a confess ion, hew was he to earn the money he had received or expected to receive? He was equal to the emergency. . He wrote the coakssaion .hlmsetf, signed it with Crippen’* > name and tamed it.over to his employers for publication at a date s© late that Crippen had no opportunity to repudiate It, even bad he so deaired, before he was hanged. Considering that Crippen was worse than undefended throughout his entfre trial it is impossible to draw say accurate conclusion a* to his guilt or Jiukooeoee. That he cat up his wife’s body and. buried it in his collar, .appears certain. But whether he killed her in cold blood, in the heat of passion or whether, indeed, she killed heroelf, and Crippen frightened, tried to hide the corpse lest he be accused of oommftttng murder, ft is imposslMbqra tetoU . Ntaatam should be forever, disbarred from trie practice of the profession ha baa disgraced, but my coneague*. Lord Chief Justice AlveTStohe t and 'Justice P»n?«. ♦« • severer punishment than a year’*

suspension and I am reluctantly compelled to concur in their opinion, that the offender may not altogether escape. It Is just possible that there may be detail* of.the statement put into Justice Parting** mouth which the lu*Uo« himsatf would repudiate. For instance, what he actually said was 'that' Crippen was obviously guilty -Consideration for thefeelings of Lord Alverstom, who would naturally not base enjoyed hearing his follow Jurist say- that be had sentenced an innocentman .to death, may have had something to do with the Justice’s utterance upop this point. But concerning. the accuracy of the substance of the translation furnished of the Justice's observations there can be no question He wanted it distinctly understood that it was 1 not alone for giving out a bogus confession that he held Newton responsible but also for the entire •. mismanagement of the Crippen defense —a mismanagement which it was wholly ImposslblAto reconcile with the. high or* der of the Solicitor’s legal abilities and attainments except on the* theory of deliberate intention.

Though the report cannot be verified, Lord Chief Justice Alverstone, who was propably considerably perturbed by the revelations of crookedness in a trial at which he presided and who perhaps also felt that it would be to-his own interest to have it appear that really this crookedness was of no great importance, is said to have questioned strongly whether Newton was guilty of such professional misconduct as to Justify even his suspension from practice. It is certain, at aay rate, that the year's suspension,' rather than .permanent disbarment, was the result of * compromise between the ,judges, Darling wanting a severer penalty and Alverstone one not so sever*. Justice Banks expressed full agreement With the' Law Society’s finding that the solicitor was guilty of misconduct' but ■Add he did not think it wsa a case for the imposition of the extreme penalty of disbarment. >. Justice Darling’* comments, tn suspending Newton, may or may not be taken an an arraignment., of those English methods of procedure in criminal ceee* which were so highly praised at the time of Crippen’s condemnation. Certainly it is not an arraignment in just no many words. Inasmuch, however, as an English Judge in supposedxto “see fair” between praaeootiow and defease: even ta the extremity of taking the cue out of 4km bands of an iscompatent lawyer and practically conducting it himself, and in view also of the fact that Lord Alverstone threw all his inftuonce to the side of the prosecutftm in the Crippen case, the justice's assertion “that Grippes was not fltom the first to last defended ss he should have been’’ assuredly sounds like an implied criticism of the judge a* well an of ths lawyer.