Courts and Criminals | Page 7

by any means in his power. As his oath, that such
a statement was voluntary, makes it ipso facto admissible as evidence,
the statutes providing that a defendant cannot be compelled to give
evidence against himself are practically nullified.
In the more important cases the accused is usually put through some
sort of an inquisitorial process by the captain at the station-house. If he
is not very successful at getting anything out of the prisoner the latter is
turned over to the sergeant and a couple of officers who can use
methods of a more urgent character. If the prisoner is arrested by
headquarters detectives, various efficient devices to compel him to
"give up what he knows" may be used--such as depriving him of food
and sleep, placing him in a cell with a "stool pigeon" who will try to

worm a confession out of him, and the usual moral suasion of a
heart-to-heart talk in the back room with the inspector.
This is the darker side of the picture of practical government. It is
needless to say that the police do not always suggest the various
safeguards and privileges which the law accords to defendants thus
arrested, but the writer is free to confess that, save in exceptional cases,
he believes the rigors of the so-called third degree to be greatly
exaggerated. Frequently in dealing with rough men rough methods are
used, but considering the multitude of offenders, and the thousands of
police officers, none of whom have been trained in a school of
gentleness, it is surprising that severer treatment is not generally met
with on the part of those who run afoul of the criminal law. The
ordinary "cop" tries to do his duty as effectively as he can. With the
average citizen gruffness and roughness go a long way in the assertion
of authority. In the task of policing a big city, the rights of the
individual must indubitably suffer to a certain extent if the rights of the
multitude are to be properly protected. We can make too much of small
injustices and petty incivilities. Police business is not gentle business.
The officers are trying to prevent you and me from being knocked on
the head some dark night or from being chloroformed in our beds. Ten
thousand men are trying to do a thirty-thousand-man job. The struggle
to keep the peace and put down crime is a hard one anywhere. It
requires a strong arm that cannot show too punctilious a regard for
theoretical rights when prompt decisions have to be made and equally
prompt action taken. The thieves and gun men have got to be driven out.
Suspicious characters have got to be locked up. Somehow or other a
record must be kept of professional criminals and persons likely to be
active in law-breaking. These are necessities in every civilized country.
They are necessities here. Society employs the same methods of
self-protection the world over. No one presumes a person charged with
crime to be innocent, either in Delhi, Pekin, Moscow, or New York.
Under proper circumstances we believe him guilty. When he comes to
be tried the jury consider the evidence, and if they are reasonably sure
he is guilty they convict him. The doctrine of reasonable doubt is
almost as much of a fiction as that of the presumption of innocence.
From the time a man is arrested until arraignment he is quizzed with a

view to inducing him to admit his offence or give some evidence that
may help convict him. Logically, why should not a person charged with
a crime be obliged to give what explanation he can of the affair? Why
should he have the privilege of silence? Doesn't he owe a duty to the
public the same as any other witness? If he is innocent he has nothing
to fear; if he is guilty--away with him! The French have no false ideas
about such things and at the same time they have a high regard for
liberty. We merely cheat ourselves into thinking that our liberty is
something different from French liberty because we have a lot of laws
upon our statute books that are there only to be disregarded and would
have to be repealed instantly if enforced.
Take, for instance, the celebrated provision of the penal laws that the
failure of an accused to testify in his own behalf shall not be taken
against him. Such a doctrine flies in the face of human nature. If a man
sits silent when witnesses under oath accuse him of a crime it is an
inevitable inference that he has nothing to say--that no explanation of
his would explain. The records show that the vast majority of accused
persons who do not avail themselves of the opportunity to testify are