Show ONLY HALF THE PROBLEM I FEW EW A Americans are apt to quarrel with At At- At Attorney 1 torney General Cummings' Cummings pica plea that broad powers bo be given the thc federal government to move mo against gangsters kidnapers racketeers and other criminals The program suggested will meet a sympathetic reception But it is worth remembering that such a program in itself isn't nearly enough r We c need to broaden our powers to catch criminals surel surely but wo we need also to do something effective about the problem of handling them after we wc have hoyc caught them The best crime detection service in the world can cnn be bc no stronger in the last ast anal analysis sis than tho the criminal court into which it feeds its product The Tho American criminal court is cursed by many things j by archaic rules of procedure pro which give tho the criminal all aU the tho breaks by bJ politically minded judges who periodically must run for reelection by a n jury system which too frequently keeps off the panel any man who is aware even oven moderately of what is going on in the world about him by a vast ast horde of unscrupulous attorneys who will ivill stop at nothing to get their clients off and whose only question when a case is offered them is How much is there in it If we wo had the tho best federal and municipal police systems on earth we still would come up against this criminal court barrier Westill Wo We V 0 still would find the machinery of paroles and suspended sentences being perverted by politicians poli against the public good We still would find juries being fixed witnesses being tampered with and legal technicalities being used to block the thc course of justice Before we can make real headway in our war on crime we must overhaul criminal court our system system- and the overhauling must be bc pretty drastic |