Show communicated 7 RE R E L la 17 VS OP OF UTAH i INO 10 tile the act conce concerning aning Justi justifiable flable killing and the prevention of public bubli C offen s acs Cs I 1 is among almonr c tile the most singular M as it is among the m most 0 st outrageous laws of tho territory it S p 20 if a man 1 having av ill killed a person can show that circumstances el cum were sufficient to excite tile tho fears of a ren reasonable person that the victim intended to commit some act constituting 0 in an offense ag against the ing and that he be really acted under the influence of su such h f fears rs and not in a spirit of revenge Z he be is judged as ha hal hating ting i ua only disella discharged aged Us his duty and the act of alling is to termed justifiable able homicide thus thas a man mail can li have a v 0 a in malice 1 lice against another and desiring to have him out of the way is suddenly seized with lt 11 the ike fec fears irs of a reasonable person that an offense is about to committed be against himself or his family and straight straightway wily lie ho kills his enemy lie ile then appears in in court narrates these reasonable fears and is acquit acquitted teI of any evil act A man i may be murdered yet under the pro visions of this act his murderer mayes may 03 cape the punishment due the crime der the plea that the circumstances were sufficient to excite fears that certain acts be or had bad been beai committed the idea of authorizing by law the killing of a man upon cusp suspicion cion that hj has committed or will ivill commit certain certai n acts not punishable with death if committed is as cruel and unjust as it is vile and b barbarous ar barous whatever may have been the intention of the law lany makin making 0 power an fn m passing this act the CM effects ts of it are precisely as stated ind and it is ig roundly assorted asserted by many residents of utah that it is ia for the purpose of shielding n from civil pro cessttie danices of the church who offer up tip the blood of men as an aton atonement calen t for their sins by order of the church authorities ties so utterly disgraceful and barbarous is this act that gover I 1 io a r diny ding t referred to it in decisive lang language wage in his of 1862 as follows lt 1 I c ill your attention especially to sections and US under the title of 4 justifiable killing and tile the prevention of public of fences 12 7 these provisions ire arc too palpably unjust to stand a lay day on your statutes jt it would be an easy casy clater far arf an in innocent n 06 en t i man na A to be ibur dered and yet under these pro provisions provision ns his murderer could escape under the plea that the circumstances cir were such bucl as to excite his fears that certa certain ll 11 I 1 acts either cither would be done or had bad beal been in ill which he claimed the immunity of the statute if your laws against the offenses there therein in named are arc not sufficiently penal make thom thin so but to authorize by a public statute the killing of a man upon the mere suspicion that he has committed or will commit certain ac acts which are less than capital 11 upon his conviction after a fair trial tria 11 seems seeing to me most cruel and unjust in china it is said that a high mandarin inan davin of the ahie button may kill with impunity a person suspected of stealing rice and cut open his stomach to rind find the evi dence of his guilt in no other instance have I 1 ever been able to find any statute or custom an analogous aloyous rl to the one under consideration N no 0 community can adopt the principles contained in that statute without soon becoming t dropping the figure as a whitened d sepulcher med filled with dead mens bones persons convicted of any crime punishable by death may in iii the discretion of the court be either hanged or shot or headed beheaded be or the condemned has the pleasure of clico choosing the mode of his death from tire ahr three e c methods named provided the judge himself does not determine it 11 S p |