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rule of twelve men for what ought to be the rule of law. The awful sentence - The soul that sinneth, it shall die, was pronounced as a law. If in this State there is to be a justifiable declaration against a murderer because you have permitted this crime, you shall die, that declaration should be made by a law by the twelve millions of people of the State; and those twelve millions have no right to ask twelve frail men to take the responsibility of saying that upon their shoulders. It is hard enough to-day to induce men to sit on a jury to try men for murder. It would be practically impossible to get men of conscience to sit on a jury when you say to them it shall be for you to decide, not for the law, you twelve men to decide whether this man shall die. It is unfair to the jury, it must necessarily result in inaccuracies one jury condemns to death and another will condemn to life imprisonment. It must depend on the nature of the jury and the ability of the lawyers who appear before it. It must lead to confusion in the jury room. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, as a matter of fact where it is used in the southern States, chiefly, it is used to hang the negro and send the white man to imprisonment for life.

The Chairman - The gentleman's time has expired.

The Chair recognizes Mr. Betts.

Mr. Reeves - Mr. Chairman may I not have two minutes more by unanimous consent?

The Chairman - If there is no objection.

Mr. Reeves It has been said that the death penalty is not a deterrent. Gentlemen, I ask you, in spite of all the statistics that might be given here today, to brush aside for a moment consideration of honor and love and duty and patriotism and think of yourselves as murderers, human animals, and look down deep into your own consciousness and conscience and intuition, and the answer will come there is no greater deterrent on the face of the earth than death. "All that a man hath will he give for his life." And that is the greatest deterrent we can put before these physical animals that commit murder. If we put them in prison for life, one or two things will happen: this proposal will put them there without the possibility of pardon if they are guilty. If you let them associate with their fellow beings in that prison they will commit more murder. There is no greater penalty ahead of them. They have everything to gain and nothing to lose by cutting or shooting their way out of imprisonment. If, on the other hand, you put them in solitary confinement, you will cause insanity. Won't it be much more humane, by one act that is painless, to put them out of the way? And, finally, I wish to say that down there in the melting pot in Greater New York is the very last place in the world to try an awful experiment of crystalizing into your Constitution for four or five years something that may make a rule of crime. We welcome aliens that are coming there, we want them to come, but we know that they are bringing from southern Europe plenty of people who recognize no law but the law of force. Think carefully, think profoundly, before you undertake to say that down in that great city you will fix it so that for the next three or four years you cannot inflict effective punishment by death upon the murderer. It is the sudden, quick infliction of the death penalty that has done the good down there in recent times and will go on doing the good. There is no demand in this State for a change, and either to make this change suggested or to abolish the death penalty by the Constitution of the State of New York, will be a crime in itself and ought not to

occur.

The Chairman - The Chair recognizes Mr. Betts.

Mr. Betts - Mr. Chairman: it is the duty of this Convention, being a Constitutional Convention, to deal with fundamental principles. I know of nothing more fundamental than human life, and I know of nothing more wicked than to take a human life unnecessarily.

Now, the question for this Convention to consider is this: Whether the abolition of capital punishment results in benefit to the State, to society, or whether the retention of capital punishment offers greater security to life and to society. I contend that capital punishment has already been abolished by the conscience of the people. You cannot enforce the penalty. You can only convict about two out of every 100 homicides, and out of the trials for murder only about 3 per cent. of those tried are convicted.

Let me read you the following: "Homicide is by far the most rapidly growing and prevalent of serious crimes in the United States. Not only do our prison records show it but also many cities complain of the tremendous growth. In 1910, according to the Chicago police report, there were 202 homicides in that city and only one man sentenced to be hanged. In New York since 1901 there have been 1,167 trials for homicides and 382 convictions The report does not say how many homicides were actually committed. In Louisville in 1910, 47 homicides and no executions. In Dallas (92,000 population) in 1910 there were 54 homicides, an average of one for each 1,704 of the population. There were but 23 indictments and only one offender convicted." (From Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, volume 3, page 759, January, 1913.)

Now, I have statistics, but I have not the time to read them. Taking the census of 1910, taken by the United States government, the census taken for 18 States in these United States, there were four States that had abolished capital punishment, and the other States had capital punishment. Now, the statistics gathered by the United States Census Bureau show an interesting result:

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT STATES, 1909, PER 100,000 POPULATION.

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It will be observed that New Hampshire is the lowest of the capital punishment States, and I understand that capital punishment has been practically abolished in New Hampshire. Not an execution has taken place in that State in about ten years. The jury in that State can inflict life imprisonment or the death penalty.

Now let us look at the States that have abolished capital punishment.

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Taking the average for ten years in capital punishment States it is 8.25 per 100,000 while in the States that have abolished capital punishment it is 3.85 for each 100,000 of the population.

Official statistics compiled by the United States government prove conclusively that in the States where capital punishment has been abolished crime decreases, with the result that their States have a greater security and a greater protection to society by reason of the fact that more criminals are confined and punished, and therefore more criminals are removed from society, and are not left at large to continue to prey upon the interests of society.

In this connection, taking this same table, I have figured out an interesting exhibit. The statistics, although not complete for the whole ten years, are complete in every State except Ohio for two years, 1908-1909. Therefore, I have taken and grouped several of the States where conditions appear to be similar in order to show the tendency, the present tendency, of the operation of the law where the death penalty prevails and where imprisonment prevails. The following table will shed much light upon this subject:

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In Wisconsin, Michigan, Maine, Rhode Island, homicides are over one hundred per cent. less than in States where they have capital punishment and now it is easy to understand why this is true. Now let me call your attention to what the Governors of some of these States and other authorities say upon this question. Here is a letter from Woodbridge N. Ferris, Governor of Michigan, and in that letter he says: "I am right when I say that convictions under imprisonments are so much greater and that more criminals are removed from society that less criminals are left to prey upon the interests of society," and he says another thing: "In death penalty cases the evidence is frequently circumstantial. Years after the conviction new information is frequently obtained whereby justice can be meted out to the living, never to the dead. I sincerely hope that my native State, New York, will abolish capital punishment."

Now, a great many of the advocates of capital punishment say that there is never an innocent man convicted or executed. I have collected myself over fifty cases where innocent men have been executed and in Michigan of which the state where Governor Ferris is governor, capital punishment was abolished in 1847, and from that time until 1899 a joint committee of the Legislature stated that during that time nine men had established their innocence and had been liberated.

Now, I have a letter here from the Governor of Wisconsin, Governor E. S. Phillipp, and he says that my contention that imprisonment brings more conviction and more security, and a greater decrease in crime is also true and he concludes his letter by saying, "Then, too, there is another side - yesterday we had a case in Milwaukee where a man who had been supposed to be murdered, and for whose death another man had been put in the penitentiary, put in his appearance quite unaware that he had been killed. Under the most careful administration of justice such things do happen." Here is a man who had just returned under those circumstances. Suppose the other man had been executed.

I have gathered statistics of over fifty such cases, and only one case out of a hundred ever comes to life. Don't you think we have sent enough innocent men to the eternal bar of justice and mercy, to plead trumpet tongued against the deep damnation of their taking off?

Now I want to say that the State has not the right to take a human life. No man has a right to take human life and therefore he cannot give that right to another. No number of men, however large, the number may be, can give the State the right to take a human life, because the men themselves who assume to give the right to the State have no such right either inherent or acquired and they cannot transfer to the State a right they never had, and which they never can possess. God alone has the right to terminate a human life. He gives and He may take away. The State can not give life and it has no right to take it away. If it takes the property of an innocent man it can restore it. If it takes the liberty of an innocent man it can restore it; but when the State takes the life of an innocent man it can not restore it. There is no Promethean match which can relight the lamp of life. Therefore it is evident that the taking of a human life by the State is an illegal and unwarranted usurpation and tyranny that can find no basis in morals and no sanction by civilization.

In support of this contention I wish to cite an eminent authority. Dr. Benjamin Franklin said: "The power over human life is the sole prerogative of Him who gave it. Human laws, therefore, are in rebellion against this prerogative when they transfer it to human hands." Upon the same subject Sir William Blackstone said:

"Life is the immediate gift of God to man, which neither can he resign, nor can it be taken from him, unless by the command of Him who gave it." Authorities equally eminent might be multiplied upon this point. Every intelligent man will concede that he has not the right to take a human life except in self-defense, and if he has no such right he cannot transfer the right to the State.

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