If the setting and actors in the endless drama are prosaic and commonplace, the drama itself is not, and its variety is endless.Justice Charles C. Nott, Jr., very much a product of his time, was one who, like many of his contemporaries, fell under the seductive spell of the eugenics movement, which very likely shaped his outlook on the administration of the law.
"In the District Attorney's Office."
By Charles C. Nott, Jr. (1869-1957).
The Atlantic Monthly (April 1905), pages 476-484.
Online HERE.
Excerpts:
. . . The purpose of this article is to sketch very briefly some of the conditions attending the trial of average, commonplace felonies which are proceeding day after day, during every month of the year, in the county—the old city—of New York. . . .
The administration of the criminal law in New York, even in important cases, is far from a spectacular affair. . . .
. . . Crime brings with it other punishments than imprisonment, but as far as the danger of imprisonment in state prison is concerned, the well-connected embezzler's risk, from a business point of view, is not much greater than that incurred by the ordinary business man in embarking on any ordinary commercial venture. . . .
. . . The question is often asked by laymen, how far an attorney may properly go in the defense of one known by him to be guilty. The answer would seem simple enough. . . .
. . . Bearing in mind that the defendant's guilt must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, it is but seldom that a fair-minded prosecuting officer can quarrel with the verdicts of acquittal rendered in the county of New York. Frequently, juries will disagree in the most exasperating manner, owing to the presence of "the eleven obstinate men;" but when a verdict is rendered, it is safe to say that it is a vindication of the wisdom of the fathers in leaving the question of the guilt or innocence of a citizen to the judgment of twelve of his fellow citizens. . . ."Coddling the Criminal."
By Charles C. Nott, Jr. (1869-1957).
The Atlantic Monthly (February 1911), pages 164-169.
Online HERE.
Excerpts:
. . . The fact is that our administration of the criminal law has as nearly reached perfection in guarding the innocent (and guilty) from conviction as is possible for any human institution; but in securing the safety and order of the community by the conviction of the guilty it is woefully inadequate. . . .
. . . The appalling amount of crime in the United States, as compared with many other civilized countries, is due to the fact that it is known generally that the punishment for crime is uncertain and far from severe. The uncertainty of punishment is largely due to the extension in our criminal jurisprudence of two principles of the common law which were originally just and reasonable, but the present application of which is both unjust and unreasonable. . . .
. . . Under the common law as it existed long after these principles originated, every felony was a capital offense, and every misdemeanor was punished with branding, mutilation, or transportation. There were no prisons except those for detention for trial. After conviction the defendant was hanged, or his ears were cropped, or he was transported to the colonies. At his trial he was not entitled to counsel. He could not take the stand and testify in his own behalf, even if there were no witnesses available to him. If convicted he was allowed no appeal. . . .
. . . Indeed the trial of a criminal case often degenerates into a proceeding which cannot be dignified by the name of a trial in a court of law, but which amounts simply to a hearing conducted arbitrarily in defiance of all rules of law, and in accordance with the whims of a judge who has taken an oath of office to do justice 'according to law,' and not according to his own whims. It is a safe assertion that, under our present system, fully seventy-five percent of judgments of acquittal could be reversed on appeal for errors committed against the prosecution. . . .
. . . All of this state of affairs would be practically reformed by two changes in the law . . . [in consequence of which] we should have a marked improvement in both the effectiveness of the criminal law and the moral tone of the courts and criminal bar."The Juror's Part in Crime."
By Charles C. Nott, Jr. (1869-1957).
Scribner's (January 1926), pages 94-96.
Online HERE.
Excerpts:
. . . it is with much hesitation, after twenty-three years spent in the administration of the criminal laws, I advance any ideas on the present conditions of crime in this country. . . .
. . . If by "the law," the administration of the law is meant, a different situation arises. Undoubtedly the administration of the law in all parts of this country is less efficient than in some other countries; but also undoubtedly in some parts of this country it is at least as efficient as in some other countries—and yet even in such parts the percentage of crime is higher with us. . . .
. . . In my opinion the weak spot in our administration of the criminal law is not so much in our police forces, or our prosecutors, or our courts as in our juries, which is equivalent to saying—in our people's general attitude to the criminal. . . .
. . . This quality in American juries is the expression of a wide and underlying attitude in the mass of our people toward the criminal. Of course, every one has, and expresses, a dislike for crime in the abstract, but in dealing with the concrete manifestation of crime, which is the criminal, this attitude of good-natured sympathy and tolerance for him, and of indifference to the evil he accomplishes, goes far toward paralyzing the efforts of judges and prosecutors. . . .
. . . This attitude of juries is well illustrated in their attitude toward the police. It may be stated generally that they have no liking for the police, no sympathy with them in the performance of their duties, and that they rarely believe them if there is any excuse whatever for their not doing so. But the moment that a policeman is himself brought to trial as a defendant, he is taken into the sympathy extended to all defendants, his word is taken and believed (although, of course, his motive to falsify is much stronger than in any case where he testifies merely as an officer), and if any of the witnesses against him are criminals, their testimony is regarded, for once, with suspicion. . . ."Coddling Criminals."
By Charles C. Nott, Jr. (1869-1957).
Scribner's (May 1926), pages 540-543.
Online HERE.
Excerpts:
A CRIME is not necessarily a sin, nor is a sin necessarily a crime—none of the seven deadly sins denounced by the church are crimes. The law, therefore, is not an institution calling upon the sinner to repent, for it has no concern with sin, as such, but only with crime. . . .
. . . In considering the matter of the punishment of crime and the treatment of the convict, this underlying distinction must be kept in mind if the punishment of crime is to be worked out along lines to make it effective to accomplish its intended end. During the last fifteen or twenty years, in the State of New York at least, a large, influential, well-meaning, and extremely vociferous body of people and organizations have been doing all in their power to ignore and to compel the authorities to ignore the fundamental difference between reformation of the sinner and punishment as a deterrent to crime. Of course, the result has been, on the one hand, to diminish the force and effect of punishment as a deterrent to crime; while, on the other, the increase in the amount of reformation effected over that obtained by the old system has been negligible. . . .
. . . a prison is and necessarily must be a most unfavorable place to effect a reformation of the individual. Reformation is a work requiring individual effort of a high order of spiritual quality upon the individual sought to be reformed; it requires a favorable environment and associations, and long-continued watchfulness and care. None of these conditions is or can be found in a prison. . . .
. . . many who have had a clear idea of the function of the criminal law had prophesied years ago that carrying the softening of prison discipline to foolish lengths not only would accomplish little in the way of reformation, but would end in increasing crime—and their prophecies have been and are being fulfilled. . . .
. . . All of the foregoing is only a brief and partial indication of the many ways in which it has been sought during the last twenty years to soften the quality and lessen the quantity of prison discipline, until now a discharged convict knows that if he should subsequently be sentenced, he will retire from the world for a sufficient season to enable him to get the alcohol and venereal disease out of his system, will work minimum hours, get a maximum of recreation and entertainment, and may, if his soul rises above the frivolities of prison life, also acquire an education or learn a trade. . . .
. . . Crime is not less in the twentieth than in the eighteenth century because punishment has been diminished; but punishment has been diminished because crime is less. No one is in favor of making punishment more severe than is necessary to accomplish its end. As, therefore, the human race has gradually emerged from the virtual barbarism of those old days, its progress and the progress of civilization have resulted in a lessening of crime—and naturally punishment also has been relaxed. But when it is so relaxed as to become no punishment at all and is so frequently escaped as to warrant the assumption it will be escaped altogether, then there can be no wonder that it fails to act as a deterrent. . . ."Old Adam: The Criminal Is Natural Man."
By Charles C. Nott, Jr. (1869-1957).
Scribner's (December 1926), pages 686-688.
Online HERE.
Excerpts:
. . . in the last few years a cult has grown and flourished, along with many other sentimentalized fads, which announces that crime is abnormal and that any man who commits a crime thereby demonstrates that he is and must be mentally abnormal, and is therefore a subject for the psychiatrist (or at least the psychologist) and the asylum or sanitarium rather than for the police, the courts, and the penal institution. . . .
. . . To any one who has observed and studied the criminal over many years, he seems intensely human—much more human and normal than do the neurasthenic philosophers who proclaim his abnormality. This is not strange, since the criminal is the natural man, animated by the old Adam, taking what he wants when he wants it and "doing up" those whom he dislikes; while the philosophers are an intensely artificial lot who see everything as abnormal which is natural enough to be beyond their unnatural way of regarding things. . . .
. . . Should it be asked, "Are there no criminals who are insane or abnormal?" of course the answer is yes. There are insane burglars, murderers, and thieves, just as there are insane grocers, lawyers, or plumbers—but their occupation in neither case is in itself evidence of insanity—even admitting the overcrowded condition of the legal profession. . . .
. . . Why crime and criminals should so often inspire sentimentality is indeed hard to say, for any one who has for years been familiar with them. The honest poor who, through their refusal to steal, finally finish their career in our city poorhouses, inspire no such feeling and are objects of entire indifference to the sentimentalists, although they are very often confined under worse conditions than those existing in many of our prisons. . . .Resources:
- A Wikipedia article about Judge Charles C. Nott, Jr. is HERE.
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