GAINS ITS END

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 12, 14 July 1930, Page 8

GAINS ITS END

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

ABOLITION DANGER

AMERICAN EVIDENCE

(From "The Post's" Representative.) NEW YOKK, 11th June.

Judge Marcus Kavanagh, of Chicago, America's leading legal reformer, ha 3 just delivered some icniarkable evidence before the Royal Communion on capital punishment, sitting in London. Judge Kavanagh is at the head of a campaign in the United States to restore the English criminal code, which has been gradually whittled away iv. tho last century in many States, iv. favour of the criminal, and he told tho English Communion he considered capital punishment not only the greatest deterrent to crime, but actually a merciful institution. The Judge baulked at sentencing women to death, but declared that outside of rural states with settled homogeneous races, capital punishment is tlia most effective way of reducing murder —and his lengthy testimony bristled with statistics backing up hia contention. In addition to executing murderers, he believed the best way of decreasing crime is to forbid the sale of revolvers and pistols except for Government purposes, and to educate children to respect and obey tho country'• laws. "MARKED DROP." "From my observations in the United States and Canada I unhesitatingly assert that there is no large city or thickly settled state where the death, penalty, if enforced, hasn't prevented murder," Judge Kavanagh stated. "Iv 1928 there was no execution in Chicago, but 498 evil-minded persons put to death many law-abiding innocent victims. Early last year four assassins received the extreme penalty, and th» murder rate fell from 498 to 401. No other influences than the fate bf tho four assassins intervened to account for this sudden and marked drop." Judge Kavanagh made much of the ease of Detroit, where capital punishment does not exist, and Windsor, Canada, where murderers are speedily executed. While the temperament, habits, morals, and religions of the people o£ the two cities is separated only by tho border, he pointed out, in 1928 and 1929 there were 485 homicides in Detroit and 97 in Detroit's Eiveraida suburbs, while not one occurred ■ in Windsor. Claiming that robbery and murder went hand in hand, the Judge went on to say that last year there were five robberies in Windsor and 2001 in Detroit and its suburbs. AH five of the Canadian thieves wera caught, and four were given the lash. Comparing Detroit -Tith Bostoni which has had capital punishment for 300 years, lie stated that Boston had 23 homicides last year against Detroit's 257, the former's rate being 2.9 per 100,000 inhabitants, -while Detroit* rate was 18.6 per 100,000. Ho; quoted numerous cases whera criminals crossed the borders before committing murder in order to escape tho death penalty. ' 'ABOLISHED BY ENFORCEMENT.'« "Every American State- which harf abolished capital punishment shows at least twice the murder rate of every neighbouring State which has retained it," Judge Kavanagh claimed. According to the Judge, 40 per cent, of tb.9 murders in the United States are committed by negroes and approximately 30 per cent, by Southern Europeans. "England has abolished capital punishment by enforcing it," the Judge- remarked, highly praising the system ia Lngland, where justice is speedy and murder comparatively rare. While defending capital puriishment in most American States, he deplored the fact that it was so little enforced. "As a matter of fact, capital punishment has been practically abolished in the United States too," he said. "It is inflicted so few times in eases of wilful and premeditated murder as almost to encourage the robber to kill, his victim rather than let him live and testify in Court. That is why ther» a^e so many robberies in the United States accompanied by cold-blooded murders. Out of all the 10,000 homicides committed in 1925, there resulted only 132 executions. "It is estimated that when a man has committed murder in the United States hia chances are sis to one against being arrested, twelve to one against being convicted, and»l2o to one against being executed^ "Every argument urged against the death penalty finally simmers down t« sympathy for the feelings o£ the condemned," the Judge- declared, attacking the opponents of capital punisli* merit as sentimentalists.