DEFENDANTS TO TESTIFY IN CRIMINAL CASES.
Mr. HOUGH moved to suspend the order of business to take his bill S. 34, to give defendants the right to testify in their own behalf in criminal cases; that it may be read the third time and put it on its passage.
Several efforts were made to amend the motion - see pp. 231 and 232 - but they were all voted down, and Mr. Hough's motion prevailed, so the bill was read the third time.
Mr. BROWN opposed the passage of the bill, believing that it would be an act of mercy to the defendant to defeat it. If he refuses to testify the jury will say that by his silence he confesses his guilt. If he testifies, they will say that if he was mean enough to commit the felony, he will be mean enough to commit perjury to clear himself. He believed that in cases of misdemeanor it would work injustice to the State, and in cases of felony it would work injustice to the defendant.
Mr. HOUGH. I think the intelligent spirit of the age will sustain a law of this kind. It is in operation in Ohio and I have heard no complaint of it. I believe it is in operation in the State of New York. I do not believe it will have a tendency to convict any innocent man. There are many times when members of the Senate as well as other persons might be surrounded by circumstances pointing to guilt, when if he could explain the circumstances as perhaps no other person could, his innocence would foe made plain. It is in just such cases as that this law should be enacted to meet. We ought not to enact a law for the purposes of enabling parties to escape justice. If this law would have a tendency to convict men who are guilty we ought to enact it; and if it will have a tendency to enable parties innocent to establish that innocence, we ought to enact it. If they are able to come into court and explain to the jury trying the case and by their evidence rebut these suspicious circumstances they ought to have the privilege of doing it. I cannot see any evils that will result from such a law. I do hope the Senate will come up and support this bill. The House of Representatives has already passed a bill containing the same provisions in substance as are in this bill. Every principle of justice demands the passage of this bill. By a bill recently passed, the State is given the opening and close in criminal cases, and surely the defendant ought to have this additional privilege in his defense.
The bill was passed by the following vote:
YEAS - Messrs. Armstrong, Beadsley, Beeson, Bird, Bowman, Chapman, Francisco, Friedley of Scott, Friedley of Lawrence, Glessner, Gregg, Hall, Harney, Haworth, Hough, Howard, Hubbard, Miller, Neff, Oliver, Rhodes, Ringo, Scott, Slater, Stroud, and Winterbotham - 26.
NAYS - Messrs Boone, Brown, Bunyan, Carnahan, Cave, Collett, Daggy, Daugherty, Dittemore, Dwiggins, Fuller, Gooding, Orr, Sarnighausen, Sleeth, Smith, Steele, Thompson, and Williams - 19.
On motion of Mr. FRIEDLEY, of Lawrence, ths order of business was suspended and the bill [H. R. 138] to provide that when a city or incorporated town shall have become in debt for the purchase of ground or buildings, or the erection of buildings, for school purposes the Trustees shall have power to issue bonds to an amount not exceeding fifty thousand dollars, was taken up and passed by yeas 37, nays 8.
On motion of Mr. COLLETT, the bill [S. 273] to provide that where railroads have been constructed in or through a county or towhship, on the faith of an appropriation voted by the people of the county or township, or the company has expended in the construction of its road a sum equal to such appropriation, the collection of the tax shall not be prevented from any defect or omission in the proceedings under which the vote was taken, was taken up.
Mr. BROWN moved to commit the bill to a special committee of three, with instructions to so amend it as to provide that when the entire line of road has been actually completed, any defect, omission, etc., shall not prevent the collection of the tax, and report this afternoon at two o'clock.
The motion was agreed to, and the Chair appointed Messrs. Brown, Carnahan and Daugherty said Committee.
On motion of Mr. CHAPMAN, his drainage act bill [S. 88] was taken up and the House amendments thereto were read.
page: 558[View Page 558]Mr. DWIGGINS opposed concurrence in the amendment proposing a new section legalizing all acts of draining companies whose work is sixteen miles in length, or under. He believed it would fasten upon the people of the Kankakee Valley all the evils from which they are struggling to free themselves; that it would make the Kankakee Draining Company a thousand fold more oppressive; that it would legalize all its illegal acts and the assessments the people are now fighting against, amounting to some four million eight hundred thousand dollars. Why legalize illegal corporations? Why strike down the defense of this people in the Kankakee valley ?
Mr. CHAPMAN. This amendment was put on in the House of Representatives, I understand by parties opposed to this Kankakee drainage law. It seems to me the intention of this amendment offered at this late day is to defeat this bill.
Mr. DWIGGINS (interposing.) I have no such intention. I will do the best I can to get the House of Representatives to recede from ite amendment.
Mr. CHAPMAN. There is one amendment made by the House I should oppose myself, if it were not so late in the session, and that is the amendment requiring a majority of those interested in the drainage to favor the ditching, instead of one-third. I think to require a majority will make it impracticable, but conclude it better to adopt the amendments of the House of Representatives than to take the chances of sending the bill back there. I have no interest particularly in that second section, but I don't think it bears the construction the Senator from Jasper [Mr. Dwiggins] attempts to put on it. I think that amendment meets the case of some Senators who made objection to the bill as originally drafted. I think the bill was sufficiently guarded as it originally pasaed by the Senate but I think it is the defect of the bill if these House amendments are not now concurred in by the Senate. We might as well say we will have ne drainage law upon the statute books. Therefore I hope the Senate will concur in the amendments as they were passed by the House of Representatives.
Mr. BOONE. For the purpose of enabling citizens of the counties I represent to organize drainage companies I am willing to concur in these amendments. I am quite sure the construction given by the gentleman from the north [Mr. Dwiggins] is not correct - it is not intended, nor can it by any possibility, apply to that Kankakee Company. I cannot see that it will injure or effect the Kankakee Drainage Company at all. I think there is nothing wrong in the amendment, and I do not think there is the danger in the language that the gentleman attributes to it; in fact if I understand the language at all, I know it cannot be so and is not intended to be so. These amendments ought to be adopted for the purpose of allowing companies that have failed to complete their work to form them articles of association and carry out what they intended to.
The Senate then adjourned till two o'clock P. M.
