Now, as it seems, the time has come
when the facts, for one reason or another, should be faced.
The difficulty does not end, however, with "arrest on
suspicion," "the third degree," "mugging," or their allied
abuses. It really goes to the root of our whole theory of the
administration of the criminal law. Is it possible that on
final analysis we may find that our enthusiastic insistence
upon certain of the supposedly fundamental liberties of the
individual has led us into a condition of legal hypocrisy
vastly less desirable than the frank attitude of our
continental neighbors toward such subjects?
The Massachusetts Constitution of 1785 concludes with the now
famous words: "To the end that this may be a government of
laws and not of men." That is the essence of the spirit of
American government. Our forefathers had arisen and thrown
off the yoke of England and her intolerable system of penal
government, in which an accused had no right to testify in his
own behalf and under which he could be hung for stealing a
sheep.
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