Courts and Criminals | Page 6

or undesirable receives a polite official call or
note, in which he is invited to leave the locality as soon as convenient.
In New York he is arrested by a plainclothes man, yanked down to
Mulberry Street for the night, and next afternoon is thrust down the
gangplank of a just departing Fall River liner. Many an inspector has
earned unstinted praise (even from the New York Evening Post) by
"clearing New York of crooks" or having a sort of "round-up" of
suspicious characters whom, after proper identification, he has ejected

from the city by the shortest and quickest possible route. Yet in the case
of every person thus arrested and driven out of the town he has
undoubtedly violated constitutional rights and taken the law into his
own hands.
What redress can a penniless tramp secure against a stout inspector of
police able and willing to spend a considerable sum of money in his
own defence, and with the entire force ready and eager to get at the
tramp and put him out of business? He swallows his pride, if he has any,
and ruefully slinks out of town for a period of enforced abstinence from
the joys of metropolitan existence. Yet who shall say that, in spite of
the fact that it is a theoretic outrage upon liberty, this cleaning out of
the city is not highly desirable? One or two comparatively innocent
men may be caught in the ruck, but they generally manage to intimate
to the police that the latter have "got them wrong" and duly make their
escape. The others resume their tramp from city to city, clothed in the
presumption of their innocence.
Since the days of the Doges or of the Spanish Inquisition there has
never been anything like the morning inspection or "line up" of arrested
suspects at the New York police head-quarters.* (*Now abolished.)
One by one the unfortunate persons arrested during the previous night
(although not charged with any crime) are pointed out to the assembled
detective force, who scan them from beneath black velvet masks in
order that they themselves may not be recognized when they meet
again on Broadway or the darker side streets of the city. Each prisoner
is described and his character and past performances are rehearsed by
the inspector or head of the bureau. He is then measured, "mugged,"
and, if lucky, turned loose. What does his liberty amount to or his
much-vaunted legal rights if the city is to be made safe? Yet why does
not some apostle of liberty raise his voice and cry aloud concerning the
wrong that has been done? Are not the rights of a beggar as sacred as
those of a bishop?
One of the most sacred rights guaranteed under the law is that of not
being compelled to give evidence against ourselves or to testify to
anything which might degrade or incriminate us. Now, this is all very

fine for the chap who has his lawyer at his elbow or has had some
similar previous experience. He may wisely shut up like a clam and set
at defiance the tortures of the third degree. But how about the poor
fellow arrested on suspicion of having committed a murder, who has
never heard of the legal provision in question, or, if he has, is cajoled or
threatened into "answering one or two questions"? Few police officers
take the trouble to warn those whom they arrest that what they say may
be used against them. What is the use? Of course, when they testify
later at the trial they inevitably begin their testimony with the
stereotyped phrase, "I first warned the defendant that anything which
he said might be used against him." If they did warn him they probably
whispered it or mumbled it so that he didn't hear what they said, or, in
any event, whether they said it or not, half a dozen of them probably
took him into a back room and, having set him with his back against
the wall, threatened and swore at him until he told them what he knew,
or thought he knew, and perhaps confessed his crime. When the case
comes to trial the police give the impression that the accused quietly
summoned them to his cell to make a voluntary statement. The
defendant denies this, of course, but the evidence goes in and the harm
has been done. No doubt the methods of the inquisition are in vogue the
world over under similar conditions. Everybody knows that a statement
by the accused immediately upon his arrest is usually the most
important evidence that can be secured in any case. It is a police
officer's duty to secure one if he can do so by legitimate means. It is his
custom to secure one