But during the long wait of years in the Tombs for him, how did the second man, the Assistant’s tool, fare? I said he was killed with kindness. Of course that is not literal; but the Fearless Prosecutor took good care of him; he was supplied with every comfort—no key was ever turned on him.
In return he subscribed to any and all statements which were required to kill number one. At the trial he made still a different confession from the two previous ones; the third one was that he himself had committed the murder at the instigation of the defendant. A self-confessed murderer, a triple perjurer, he is now scot-free, and an innocent man is in the Death-Chamber.
These are the methods of the fourth degree. The Court of Appeals does not approve of them; one District Attorney has been removed from office by the Governor; but another, he of the ever-ready biography, has handed them down to his sons as an heritage of fame.
The public has no idea of the enormous number of cases which are reversed by the Court of Appeals. Here is a recent one. A young man was sentenced to imprisonment for twenty-five years by a General Session’s judge. But the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, when reviewing the case, said: “The defendant’s guilt has not been proven. It is not even proven by the evidence that _any_ crime was committed.” This is a fact, and any one who will take the trouble to read the published decisions will find it and many more such instances.
Of the convictions obtained by the District Attorney in the Court of General Sessions, a small proportion of the convicted men have money to appeal to the higher courts, and the percentage of new trials granted is high. How much higher would it be if _all_ cases were appealed? In other words, think of the poor devils who are in State prison unjustly because of their lack of money.
There is a remedy for this state of affairs. We have a legislature, a bar association, and a legal aid society. Among all these could not some arrangement be made for inspectors, to whom a man unjustly convicted could complain and receive assistance? Is there no relief or redress for the sufferers from the fourth degree, when even the third degree is forbidden by law?