MURDERS IN AMERICA

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 257, 26 July 1930, Page 31

MURDERS IN AMERICA

Chicago Judge Talks to British M.P.’s

Law-abiding M.P.’s, sitting in a prosaic room at tire House of Commons. London, heard the truth about the wild lawlessness of Chicago from one of the men who should know most about it— Judge Cavanaugh, of Chicago. The judge was giving evidence before the Special Committee on Capital Punishment. He told of murders, gunmen, women poisoners, and faked alibis in Chicago. “Outside this phase,” he added, ’’Chicago is a normal city.” Judge Cavanaugh told the committee that he favoured the retention of the death penalty in certain cases, but it was not a matter which could be generalised. One of the cases where he did not favour capital punishment was in the case of women.

In some States of America, said the judge, capital punishment was the best deterrent, in others it was not. In New York, for instance, there was twice the chance that an assassin would meet his fate than in Chicago; and the homicide rate was more than twice as high in Chicago as in New York. Sixteen States in America had abolished the death penalty and eight had re-introduced it.

Judge Cavanaugh gave details about crime in Chicago. He said: “In 1920 we were overwhelmed with persons awaiting trial for homicide in Chicago. It was my duty to assign the cases to other judges. It was a horrible ordeal. My comparatively small court room was crowded with men and women who had taken human life. Fourteen were executed, and the murder rate in Chicago dropped from 308 to 109. “There are perhaps 200 people walking the streets of Chicago safe and well to-day who would have been in their graves if these miscreants had not paid the penalty. Every time the death sentence is not carried out, the murder rate goes up, and every time there is an execution the murder rate goes down. lam inclined to believe that the death penalty is a merieful thing because it saves innocent lives. By the use of the death penalty you have gradually abolished predatory murder. “The criminal elements in America are a floating scum on the population To convict is sometimes extraordinarily difficult. Here is a case within by experience : “A father and son were appointed by a secret society to kill two men. They were accompanied by a committee of five. They met the men and fatally wounded one of them. The other man escaped, and, most unusually, came forward to testify. The other man made a dying declaration. “The father and son who were appointed to commit the murder were arrested, but they brought into my court 62 witnesses to prove an alibi. If they had wanted them they could have got a lot more. I convicted the father and son. They appealed to the Supreme Court, who said to me, ‘What do you mean by convicting against the testimony of 62 witnesses?’ The two men were set free., What would your police do in circumstances of that kind?

Judge Cavanaugh cited another instance. A wealthy lawyer named Ossario, who was a major in the Great War, was dining one night with a companion. He left the table for a few moments, and when he returned his companion had gone. He went out on to the pavement. In a few moments a voice was heard crying, “Ossario, Ossario.” . Then there were shots. ( The voice was heard again, and there were more shots. Many people saw that murder actually committed. but no one would come forward to testify. “I ask you,” Judge Cananaugh repeated, “what would your police do in a case like that?”

Judge Cavanagh said that the war had had no influence on crime, either in America or England. When he was last in London he heard Sir Ernest Wild (the recorder of London) tell his grand jury that there were only two charges of robbery with violence in the whole of the great City of London in three months. That was a remarkable fact. Homicide had increased in recent years in America. The prohibition laws had created a special kind of criminal, generally of Southern European birth. These men killed each other with considerable frequency.

Mr. W. H. Ayles: Do you think that the alternative of a life sentence should be given a chance. Judge Cavanaugh: We have already given it too much of a chance. There are thousands in our prisons for killing their fellow men, and many of them should have been executed.

Would you describe Chicago as a normal American city?—Outside this one phase, Chicago is a normal city. Judge Cavanaugh then told of the case of a man named Coffee. This man, said the judge, was determined to kill Ins bigamous wife to escape prosecution. He took her from the State of lowa, where capital punishment existed, to Wisconsin, where life imprisonment was the extreme punishment, and killed her there. He afterward confessed that his motive for doing- so was to escape the danger of the death penally. The judge said 40 per cent, of crime in America was committed by negroes. The negro was only four generations from the jungle—from the days when they hunted each other for their dinners. Sometimes negroes killed for the mere pleasure of killing. Comparing American and British statistics in homicide, the judge said that a remarkable thing about England was the number of murderers who committed suicide. He thought that that showed a feeling of hopelessness in lighting the laws of the country. In America a large proportion of women murderers were poisoners, and others were guilty in that they incited men to crime. \ Hr. Ethel Bentham: Would you make any difference in the punishment of men and women? —Yes, .1 would hesitate to impose the death penalty on a woman, though I cannot tell you why. It is a matter of feeling.