THE
BREVIER LEGISLATIVE REPORTS.
FOURTEENTH VOLUME.
INDIANA LEGISLATURE.
Female Prison---The Law of Libel.---Debate in Continuation.
IN SENATE.
FRIDAY, January 31, 1873.[Morning Session.]
The bill [H. R. 211] To appropriate $50,000 for the completion of the Female Prison and put the grounds in order, etc., being read the 3rd time -
Mr. WINTERBOTHAM, moved to recommit the bill to the Committee on Prisons with instructions to strike out $50,000 and insert $25,000.
Mr. FRIEDLEY, of Lawrence, said he had the utmost confidence in the committee which recommended the passage of the bill but it seemed to him that this was a very large sum, and considering the condition of the State Treasury it would be well to refer this to a Committee with instructions to cut down the appropriation one half. If it is possible to get along with a less sum, than $50,000 it ought to be done. More than that, he was not very favorable to the object for which this money is appropriated. He did not believe that in five years from now the State would be satisfied with the action.
Mr. DITTEMORE said there was $15,000 to $20,000 due for work already done, and the building is barely inclosed. It seems that this amount is absolutely necessary to pay off the indebtedness, and put the building in a condition for use.
Mr. OLIVER understood that a large amount was now due on account of the construction of this building, and that those who had done the work and furnished the materials were greatly in need of the money.
Mr. BEESON said he thought the object of the bill was not understood. Its object was twofold, to provide a place of confinement for female convicts and a reformatory department for girls. It is conceded that one of the most important steps toward prison reform will be accomplished by the separation of the sexes. If the appropriation is cut down to $25,000 it will barely pay the indebtedness, and the institution will have to remain unfit for use two years longer.
Mr. NEFF moved to amend by striking out $25,000 and inserting $30,000.
Mr. STEELE said he had been informed by Govenor Baker and others in whom he had confidence that the appropriation of $50,000 was necessary to pay off the debts and complete the building.
Mr. FRIEDLEY, of Lawrence, said there were other institutions, the asylums for the insane, deaf and dumb, blind, and others, which would be asking for appropriations, and which he thought were more worthy than this institution. If this appropriation is made he feared it would necessitate the reduction of appropriations to the others. There are already institutions in which female delinquents can be confined, and it would be better to use them two years longer than jeopardize the institutions which he had named.
The motion to recommit, with instructions, was rejected - yeas 15, nays 25.
page: 406[View Page 406]Mr. FRIEDLEY, of Lawrence, moved to recommmit to the Committee on Prisons with instruction to strike out $50,000 and insert $35,000.
Mr. WADGE moved to lay the motion on the table. It was agreed to - yeas, 22; nays, 19.
Mr. HOUGH moved to recommit the bill with instructions to strike out $50,000 and insert $40,000.
Mr. DAUGHERTY moved to lay the motion on the table. This motion was agreed to.
Mr. DWIGGINS moved the previous question, which was seconded.
And under its operation the vote on the passage of the bill resulted - yeas, 27; nays, 13. So the bill was passed.
LIBEL - A CRIME.
[CONTINUED FROM PAGE 104 TOP OF SECOND COLUMN.]
Mr. Collett's bill [S. 76] for an act defining the crime of libel, and prescribing punishment therefor was read the third time. [A libel is the malicious defamation of a person, made public by any printing, writing, sign, picture or effigy, tending to provoke him to wrath, expose him to public hatred or bring him into public disrepute, or any malicious defamation of a deceased person, tending to scandalize or provoke his surviving relatives or friends. The penalty for libel is fixed at a fine of not less than $100 nor more than $3,000, and imprisonment not less than ten days nor more than one year. The truth may be proved in defense. Malice will be presumed where the allegations are false.]
Mr. HOUGH moved to recommit the bill to the Committee on Judiciary with instructions to strike out that portion providing a penalty of imprisonment.
Mr. WADGE moved to lay the motion on the table. The latter motion was agreed to.
Mr. SLATER said this was simply a bill striking at newspapers. According to its provisions a man can't say anything against a political opponent tending to bring him into disrepute during the heat of a campaign without danger of being clapped into prison.
Mr. HOUGH did not think the bill was striking at anybody, editors or anybody else who wanted to do right, but he was in favor of striking out that clause fixing a penalty of imprisonment.
Mr. BROWN said the bill did not strike at newspaper men who ought not to be struck at. A custom has grown up of late that makes men's characters of little value to them, and the law on the subject of libel is not sufficient to suppress the many abuses of personal character which are now prevalent. This bill proposes to make it a misdemeanor to publish any false, or malicious statement about any one tending to defame his character, bring him into public scandal, disgrace and disrepute, or having a tendency to injure him or degrade and dishonor the memory of the dead. It seemed to him a very wise one. It was not restricted to newspapers, because any injurious or defamatory publication, by handbill, picture, or otherwise is as much a libel as any article in a newspaper. But if it has a tendency to restrain a custom which has grown up of late years for the press to scandalize, vilify, and traduce men's characters, in his opinion it will have accomplished a great and substantial good. The Senator over the way [Mr. Slater,] thinks if this bill is passed, the press will have no license to say anything against a man in a political campaign. It will not so operate, but it will say to editors of all political parties that in the heat of all political campaigns their publications must be circumscribed by the rules of decency and truth. During the late political campaign men of all parties whose characters and integrity were as pure as those of their neighbors and their associates were the victims of the malice and scandal and slander of newspaper editors, and it seemed to him that the safety of men's characters, the safety of men's virtue and the maintenance of public morals require the General Assembly of the State of Indiana to throw some restraints around the common scandalizers and retailers of falsehood and scandal against public men. And there is another class that needs protection. There is a set of men that ought not to bear the name of humankind that go about the country publishing and circulating falsehoods about the other sex. The victims have not the opportunity of defending themselves at the bar of public inquiry that men have, and yet to the shame of Indiana law, it can be said that there is no protection afforded them except the mere civil remedy, which is the right to sue and recover such damages as a jury may be pleased to assess. In his judgment, the best preventive against this indecent warfare and conduct is to let the authors of the iniquity know that they will be dealt with as they deserve. The press should be and is free, but no highminded man occupying the editorial chair who seeks to do exact justice in his publications, who seeks to publish the truth and only the truth against his fellow-beings, will complain of this rightful measure of legislation.
Mr. SLATER. It seems to me this bill is unjust in all its provisions. It will have no effect apon any class of people, I repeat, except publishers of newspapers. Not longer ago than last summer the only reforms we have had in regard to the State printing were page: 407[View Page 407] brought about by newspapers, notwithstanding the Court decided that you could not prove any thing wrong in regard to this State printing. The people no doubt believe the accusations made by the press just and proper.
Mr. GREGG thought the protection which females need was lost when the bill in relation to slander failed to pass. He did not believe that editors were much in the habit of attacking that class of people. Public men, more than anybody else - politicians, were the ones who would be affected by it, and he seriously doubted the policy of a law which would protect politicians against fair criticism or investigation either on the stump or by the press of the country. If any man has been wronged, he has his remedy at law by a civil suit. He thought it would be a dangerous experiment to create the offense a misdemeanor and subject editors and newspaper men to indictment and trial in the courts, and possibly to imprisonment.
Mr. GOODING said it seemed to him that this was simply re-enacting what past experience had shown was not good. He did not suppose any one there wanted to protect slanderers. The question was whether this bill had not great defects in itself. He would submit to every lawyer on the floor whether the offense, the crime of libel, was defined with the particularity which the Constitution requires. The judges would be compelled to construe the law, and one would decide that a certain squib in a newspaper was a crime, and the Judge in the adjoining circuit would declare that it was not. As the law now is we have certain sets of words that are known as slanderous per se, and when you want to allege slander outside of that you must allege special damages. The language of this bill is very vague, and we would have no uniform ruling by the Judges of the different circuits. We have a good and strong law now, providing for a civil suit for libel, whereby not only may actual damages be recovered, but the jury may pile up "smart" money. If convictions are hard to obtain where only a preponderance of evidence is required, how can a conviction be expected where the evidence must be beyond a reasonable doubt? If the newspapers slander a man, he can go before a Court and it will leach them a lesson. Again, in cases where a criminal prosecution is pending, exemplary damages cannot be awarded in the civil action, and he thought the loss of the opportunity to inflict exemplary damages upon the libeler would more than counterbalance any benefits that might accrue under this bill.
Mr. HOUGH said the language of the bill was as definite and specific as that of what is known as the "provoke law," which had been held good by the Supreme Court, and which is executed in every County in this State.
Mr. GOODING. Has not that provoke law been ridiculed everywhere ?
Mr. HOUGH. The Superior Court holds it to be a good law - it is more indefinite than this bill; hence that objection is untenable.
Mr. SLATER. If the Legislature has passed one law which has brought us into ridicule, is that any reason we should enact another ?
Mr. HOUGH. This is the law substantially, in about all the States, and it seems to me this bill ought to pass. It will leave editors free to publish everything that is true of a man, and they ought not to want to publish anything that is not true, or which they have riot sufficient evidence to prove.
Mr. SLATER. According to the provisions of this bill, the Senator or any other man may go into a public meeting and make a speech calculated to bring me and my newspaper into disrepute and I have no redress in the world.
Mr. HOUGH. Why didn't you vote for the other bill ? [S. 75,]which just failed for want of the Constitutional majority ?
Mr. DWIGGINS was in favor of the principles contained in the law, but thought the bill was defective. It provides that every person who shall publish any libelous matter shall be liable to prosecution. What is a publication ? Why, if any newspaper in this city should publish a libelous statement about any one, and the speaker should come into the Senate and read it aloud in the hearing of other members, he would be liable under this law, unless he could prove that it was done without malice. The offense, too was not clearly defined. He moved to refer it to the Committee on Judiciary, with instructions to define the offense more particularly and declare that the author of the libel alone shall be liable.
Mr. BROWN denied that in the case put by the Senator from Jasper (Mr. Dwiggins,) the reading of a libelous article would subject him to penalties proposed by this measure, and thought the bill was definite enough. The Senator from Vanderburg, (Mr. Gooding,) said it would cut off exemplary damages. That is one of the strongest reasons for its passage. Why are exemplary damages allowed in actions for libel? Because the libeler has not only committed a wrong against the plaintiff, but an offense against society and it is sought to inflict a penalty upon him which will deter him from a repetition of this offense against so- page: 408[View Page 408] ciety, and others from committing it. Now, he did not believe it right to allow the plaintiff, over and above his actual damages, to take and pocket money assessed as a protection to society. It should go into the coffers of the community. If it is right to give exemplary damages because it it an offense against the community, why not make it an offense at once, and allow the courts to come to the direct question at once in a criminal pleading? Again, the impracticability of obtaining satisfactory redress for libel and slander by a civil action provokes men to redress their wrongs by personal violence, and leads to riots and breaches of the peace.
Mr. RHODES thought the bill was a very clear innovation on the principles of criminal law. It is a rule in our criminal jurisprudence that a defendant who is charged with an offense shall have the benefit of any reasonable doubt of his guilt. The third section of this bill destroys, so far as this class of prosecutions is concerned, that principle entirely. There would be no trouble in prosecuting a newspaper publisher under this bill - there would be no difficulty to prove he was a publisher, but under the third section unless he can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the libelous matter is absolutely true he stands convicted. I think it is unfair.
Mr. BROWN. That is the law the world over.
Mr. RHODES. I can't help that. In a civil transaction where one party seeks to recover judgment it is necessary to prove that the matter charged as libelious is true beyond a reasonable doubt. But that rule does not apply to crimical law, and this section changes the practice in regard to that. This third section entirely over rides that principle in our criminal law, and I shall vote against it. I move to amend the motion of the Senator from Jasper, [Mr. Dwiggins,] by instructing the Committee to strike out that third section.
Mr. GLESSNER, I think the motion to recommit should prevail. The bill ought to define to some extent what a libel shall be. He thought the definition of the offense was too broad. It does not make it necessary that the party shall be disgraced or injured. It is sufficient that the alleged libel has a tendency to disgrace or injure him. This would exclude all adverse criticism of any kind upon a public officer.
Mr. STEELE moved to refer the bill to the Committee on Rights and Privileges.
Mr. DAUGHERTY demanded the previous question. It being, seconded by the Senate both motions to refer to a Committee with instructions, were rejected, and the bill itself was also lost by yeas 16, nays 19 - as follows:
YEAS - Messrs. Beeson, Boone, Brown, Bunyan, Collett, Daggy, Dittemore, Hall, Hough, Howard, Hubbard, O'Brien, Orr, Scott, Steele, Wadge, - 16
NAYS - Messrs. Bowman, Carnahan, Cave, Daugherty, Dwiggins, Fuller, Francisco, Glessner, Gooding, Gregg, Haworth, Miller, Neff, Oliver, Rhodes. Ringo, Slater, Smith, Stroud, - 19.
