Debate

"Crouching pallid in the dock, abject or surly or swooning, his lips parched, his fingers fumbling over his face, the soul within him howling like a dark creature brought to earth, a murderer waiting for sentence. The judge's words drone in his ears, he lifts his sleeve to hide his cheek. It is important, that sleeve. If suave, well-turned, fashionable, this agony and sweat will pass; he will merely remove his abode to a comfortable jail where he can eat, sleep, exercise, read, at leisure. If the sleeve be tattered, he will dance on the wind or scorch in the electric chair, for the rich have their sentences commuted, the poor die."

To this effect spoke Clarence Darrow, famed defender, who crowned his unique legal reputation by emerging victorious in a recent Chicago murder trial. He was speaking against Judge A. J. Talley in a public debate on capital punishment conducted in the Manhattan Opera House, Manhattan, under the auspices of the League for Public Discussion. Said he:

"I'll guarantee that every man awaiting death in Sing Sing is there because he was without a good lawyer. Do you suppose you can get a good lawyer to look after poor clients? No, they are too busy looking after the wealth of great corporations!"

Countered Judge Talley, upholder of the death penalty, the Chicago trial coming to his mind: "You can't blow hot and cold on this. You can't on one day plead for a man because he is poor, and on the next ask mercy because he is rich and over-educated." He stated that were the death penalty abolished, there would be no possible deterrent to killing, since no criminal feared the pleasant conditions of a jail. In prison, Judge Talley said, ruffians are bedded with a comfort, fed with a largess, that they could never themselves have afforded. The long hard evenings are made bearable by cinema shows, or, should the prisoners weary of these, by free performances of well-known stage stars.

Lawyer Louis Marshall, presiding, took exception to Mr. Darrow's criticism of the bench. "It has been said that the courts never assign first-class lawyers to defend poor men charged with murder. I can give testimony that this is not true in New York City. ... I say this in the interest of a fair view of a great subject." Lewis Lawes, warden of Sing Sing, also present, indicated that he was op posed to capital punishment.