Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 November 1897 — PULSE of the PRESS [ARTICLE]

PULSE of the PRESS

The Luetgert Trial. The Inetgert jury wisely refused to. to. ♦abldsl» a precedent, for hanging men oa expert testimony.-Mjlw-aukee Sentinel. Mi\ Luetgert's lawyers, will probaly be tnagisnnimous enengh to. refrain from instigating proceedings against tjte court, and prosecution officers.—New. York Journals The disagreesnen-t of the j(wy was an expected outccone of this. sensational case. The evidence- was altogether too circumstantial to make- nn easy finding possible* —Boston Herald. The Luetgert trial should be a warning, lest its laxity and irregularities are followed in other cases until the administration of justice in the United States shall fall into utter contempt.—Boston Transcript., There has never been a more coas-dcur ous and disgusting exhibition, of judicial unfitness and professional trivia ;ty iy. the United States than the Luetgert trial, and that is saying a great deal.—lndians? polia Journal. The failure of the jury hi the Luetgert murder ease to find a verdict is not surprising to anybody in this part of the country. There is actually matter for surprise that an acquittal was not eatered.—New Orleans Picayune. The result is only a repetition of the experience that the courts in all countries, and particularly in the United States, have had where expert testimony is introduced to establish the prosecution or support. the defense.—Philadelphia Times. At present whatever may be the instinctive feeling regarding the guilt or innocence 'of the big sausage maker, impartial judgment can hardly be otherwise than that his guilt was not proven beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt. —Cleveland Plain Dealer. In the looseness of proceeding, the lack of intelligent and strict direction of the work and the haphazard met boil of securing expert testimony, the Luetgert trial gave peculiar emphasis to the faults of practice in criminal trials.—St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The result of the Luetgert trial is what was generally expected. In a case of this ■kind men hesitate a long while before sending one of their fellows to the gallows on purely circumstantial evidence supported wholly by expert testimony that the layman cannot understand.—St. Louis Republic. The three dissenting jurors are not without justinfmation for their action; In the absence of positive proof that Mrs. Luetgert was really killed, it seems to us unnecessary to advance a.ny discreditable theory of their pertinacious refusal to condemn Luetgert to the gollows.—Rochester (N. Y.) Herald..