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DO OUR LAWS PROTECT CRIMINALS? 239

DO OUR LAWS PROTECT CRIMINALS?

WHY THE UNITED STATES LEADS THE WORLD IN THE RELATIVE
PROPORTION OF MURDERS, LYNCHINGS AND OTHER FEL-
ONIES, AND WHY THE ANGLO-SAXON COUNTRIES NOT
UNDER THE AMERICAN FLAG HAVE THE LEAST PROPORTION OF
MURDERS AND FELONIES AND KNOW NO LYNCHINGS.*

Among the enlightened nations the United States leads
the world in manumitting murderers and enlarging felons,
while Anglo-Saxon countries not under the American flag
have the least percentage of murderers and felons.

Has any other nation laws which its courts of last resort
characterize as "a shelter to the guilty," which "has no
place in the jurisprudence of civilized and free countries
outside the domain of the common law, and it is nowhere
observed among our own people in the search for truth out-
side the administration of the law" (Twining v. New Jersey,
211 U. S. 91, 113), or as "the privilege of crime" (State v.
Wentworth, 65 Maine, 241)?

Ex-President William H. Taft in his address before the
Civic Forum of New York City on April 28, 1908, said (p.
15):

And now, what has been the result of the lax administration of crim-
inal law in this country? Criminal statistics are exceedingly difficult to
obtain. The number of homicides one can note from the daily news-
papers, the number of lynchings and the number of executions, but the
number of indictments, trials, convictions, acquittals, or mistrials it is
hard to find. Since 1885 in the United States there have been 131,951
murders and homicides, and there have been 2,286 executions. In 1885
the number of murders was 1,808. In 1904 it has increased to 8,482.
The number of executions in 1885 was 108. In 1904 it was 116. This
startling increase in the number of murders and homicides as compared

with the number of executions tells the story. As murder is on the in

* Read before the Society of Medical Jurisprudence, New York City, De-
cember 11, 1916, by Henry A. Forster, Esq, of the New York Bar.

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