CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IS SOLE CHECK FOR MURDERS

"One should go very slowly in changing laws that on the whole work well," said Professor J. H. Beale '82 in an interview with a CRIMSON reporter yesterday afternoon. Professor Beale, Royal Professor of Law in the Harvard Law School, thus came out in defense of the capital punishment law, which Zechariah Chafee Jr., Professor in the Harvard Law School, is now vigorously opposing.

"If change is to be made, the interest of the people as a whole is paramount," continued Professor Beale. "Reasons against the proposed change are: the weakening of the defenses against murder, if the punishment is not thought adequate; prisoners would expect to be and frequently are freed before their term ends; capital punishment alone cannot be avoided, as imprisonment can be by release after the public has forgotten the crime.

"Many crimes are punished by long imprisonment; if a man while committing such a crime finds that he can escape detection by killing, there is no fear of punishment to restrain him from doing so, if murder is also punished by imprisonment.

"If a brutal murder is punished leniently, there is a feeling among the people of dissatisfaction with the law, and mob violence, has in such a case resulted more than once. The tranquillity of the state rests principally on satisfaction with the law.

"A law, such as is often passed permitting a jury to convict of murder without capital punishment would take care of less serious cases and of cases where there is a shadow of doubt."