• Complain

Arthur Cheney Train - Courts, Criminals and the Camorra

Here you can read online Arthur Cheney Train - Courts, Criminals and the Camorra full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. year: 2021, publisher: Independently published, genre: Detective and thriller. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:

Romance novel Science fiction Adventure Detective Science History Home and family Prose Art Politics Computer Non-fiction Religion Business Children Humor

Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.

No cover

Courts, Criminals and the Camorra: summary, description and annotation

We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "Courts, Criminals and the Camorra" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.

Arthur Cheney Train: author's other books


Who wrote Courts, Criminals and the Camorra? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.

Courts, Criminals and the Camorra — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Courts, Criminals and the Camorra" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make
Note Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive See - photo 1
Note:Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/courtscriminalst00trairich


BOOKS BY ARTHUR TRAIN
Courts, Criminals, and the Camorranet$1.50
The Confessions of Artemas Quibble. Illustratednet$1.30
The Butlers Story. Illustrated$1.25
True Stories of Crime. Illustrated$1.50
McAllister and His Double. Illustrated$1.50
The Prisoner at the Bar. New and Enlarged Edition$1.50
Mortmain. Illustrated$1.50

COURTS, CRIMINALS
AND THE CAMORRA

COURTS, CRIMINALS
AND THE CAMORRA
BY
ARTHUR TRAIN
Formerly Assistant District Attorney, New York County
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNERS SONS
1912

Copyright, 1912, by
CHARLES SCRIBNERS SONS

Published September, 1912
Logo.

To
CHARLES ALBERT PERKINS
OF THE NEW YORK BAR

CONTENTS
I.COURTS
PAGE
I.The Pleasant Fiction of the
Presumption of Innocence
II.Preparing a Criminal Case for Trial
III.Sensationalism and Jury Trials
II.CRIMINALS
IV.Why Do Men Kill?
V.Detectives and Others
VI.Detectives Who Detect
III.THE CAMORRA
VII.The Camorra in Italy
VIII.An American Lawyer at Viterbo
IX.The Mala Vita in America

COURTS

CHAPTER I
THE PLEASANT FICTION OF THE PRESUMPTION
OF INNOCENCE
There was a great to-do some years ago in the city of New York over an ill-omened young person, Duffy by name, who, falling into the bad graces of the police, was most incontinently dragged to head-quarters and mugged without so much as By your leave, sir, on the part of the authorities. Having been photographed and measured (in most humiliating fashion) he was turned loose with a gratuitous warning to behave himself in the future and see to it that he did nothing which might gain him even more invidious treatment.
Now, although many thousands of equally harmless persons had been similarly treated, this particular outrage was made the occasion of a vehement protest to the mayor of the city by a certain member of the judiciary, who pointed out that such things in a civilized community were shocking beyond measure, and called upon the mayor to remove the commissioner of police and all his staff of deputy commissioners for openly violating the law which they were sworn to uphold. But, the commissioner of police, who has sometimes enforced the penal statutes in a way that has made him unpopular with machine politicians, saw nothing wrong in what he had done, and, what was more, said so most outspokenly. The judge said, You did, and the commissioner said, I didnt. Specifically, the judge was complaining of what had been done to Duffy, but more generally he was charging the police with despotism and oppression and with systematically disregarding the sacred liberties of the citizens which it was their duty to protect.
Accordingly the mayor decided to look into the matter for himself, and after a lengthy investigation came to the alleged conclusion that the mugging of Duffy was a most reprehensible thing and that all those who were guilty of having any part therein should be instantly removed from office. He, therefore, issued a pronunciamento to the commissioner demanding the official heads of several of his subordinates, which order the commissioner politely declined to obey. The mayor thereupon removed him and appointed a successor, ostensibly for the purpose of having in the office a man who should conduct the police business of the city with more regard for the liberties of the inhabitants thereof. The judge who had started the rumpus expressed himself as very much pleased and declared that now at last a new era had dawned wherein the government was to be administered with a due regard for law.
Now, curiously enough, although the judge had demanded the removal of the commissioner on the ground that he had violated the law and been guilty of tyrannous and despotic conduct, the mayor had ousted him not for pursuing an illegal course in arresting and mugging a presumptively innocent man (for illegal it most undoubtedly was), but for inefficiency and maladministration in his department.
Said the mayor in his written opinion:
After thinking over this matter with the greatest care, I am led to the conclusion that as mayor of the city of New York I should not order the police to stop taking photographs of people arrested and accused of crime or who have been indicted by grand juries. That grave injustice may occur the Duffy case has demonstrated, but I feel that it is not the taking of the photograph that has given cause to the injustice, but the inefficiency and maladministration of the police department, etc.
In other words, the mayor set the seal of his official approval upon the very practice which caused the injustice to Duffy. Mugging was all right, so long as you mugged the right persons.
The situation thus outlined is one of more than passing interest. Whatever the merely political outcome may be, and it may be far-reaching, a sensitive point in our governmental nervous system has been touched and a condition uncovered that sooner or later must be diagnosed and cured.
For the police have no right to arrest and photograph a citizen unconvicted of crime, since it is contrary to law. And it is ridiculous to assert that the very guardians of the law may violate it so long as they do so judiciously and do not molest the Duffys. The trouble goes deeper than that.
The truth is that we are up against that most delicate of situations, the concrete adjustment of a theoretical individual right to a practical necessity. The same difficulty has always existed and will always continue to exist whenever emergencies requiring prompt and decisive action arise or conditions obtain that must be handled effectively without too much discussion. It is easy while sitting on a piazza with your cigar to recognize the rights of your fellow-men, but if you were starving on the high seas in an open boat! You may assert most vigorously the right of the citizen to immunity from arrest without legal cause, but if you saw a seedy character sneaking down a side street at three oclock in the morning, his pockets bulging with jewelry and silver! Que voulez vous, msieu? Would you have the policeman on post insist on the fact that a burglary had been committed being established beyond peradventure before arresting the suspect, who in the meantime would undoubtedly escape? Of course, the worthy officer sometimes does this, but his conduct in that case becomes the subject of an investigation on the part of his superiors. In fact, the rules of the New York police department require him to arrest all persons carrying bags in the small hours who cannot give a satisfactory account of themselves. Yet there is no such thing under the laws of the State as a right to arrest on suspicion. No citizen may be arrested under the statutes unless a crime
Next page
Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «Courts, Criminals and the Camorra»

Look at similar books to Courts, Criminals and the Camorra. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.


Reviews about «Courts, Criminals and the Camorra»

Discussion, reviews of the book Courts, Criminals and the Camorra and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.