Show I i I i CAPITAL lUN1UlltN 1 I I Another attempt has been made in Michigan to restore the death penalty I I The House pared the bill but the I Senate refused us sanction The Senators I Sena-tors are being cured by some of the 1 papers notably those outside the State t j on the ground that theiraction not only has tendency to increase the crime of I J murder but fastens ou the State the cost of boarding and clothing its murderers I mur-derers during their natural lives All xof which talk is shallow and nonsensical nonsensi-cal Many years ago Michigan abolished I capital punishment fixing the maximum maxi-mum penalty for murder at imprisonment imprison-ment at hard labor for life The action w sY experimental ba ed partly on 1 human repugnance to killing and i partly on the idea that capital punishment punish-ment i does not leaden the crime I 4 t The working of the law has I t I justified the wisdom of those who f i enacted it Murders have actually deli de-li creased and as to the cost of keeping > > the murderers these have more than paidfor their board and clothes The fear of the executioner may now and I then deter a man from doing murder bu the dread of life imprisonment is al 1 I mostif not quite as powerful a deterrent 3t as the other neither being taken into i I account very often until it is too late to t reason Murder is rarely deliberate act if premeditated the murderer I either plans + with the view to escape the penalty for his crime or cares little for the consequences t I if he can kill his intended victim I vic-tim In nine cases out of ten killings I are the results of passion when ama E a-ma does not stop to consider as to the result and would not stop if the law said bat he must be r drawn and quartered nithin an hour of I i the murder ana justice never failed or they result from intoxication when then the-n slayer incapable of taking in to account the consequences to himself of his I crime As illustrating the little effect that the fear of the death penalty has upon the mind of the coolI eaded the determined calculating murderer j we may refer to the fellow Hopt who killed young Turner five years ago Hopt wasJ amiliar with the statute that said the murderer should be executed by the state and yet he deliberately And in hisoright mind and sober senses fe slew his victim believing he could cunningly escape the penalty His execution deserved as it is as a vindication vindi-cation of the law and on the 1 theory that there must be given a life pp I J for a life will not staythe hand of another 6 r an-other Hopt who has opportunities and i is actuated by motives like his Had the legal punishment been life imprisonment impris-onment or only ten or five years in jail he would have slain the boy Turner no 2 sooner nor have shown deeper cunning inhis effort to escape the responsibility f i I for his crime I i This question of how far society has the right to go in punishing murderers f I is something that the world has not yet j r f II done discussing That society has the j right to protect itself against murderers i is beyond dispute but it is not so clear I 1 that in the exercise of that protection it j J r has the right to kill j r |