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The Green Bag
Sam Lima, said to be the leader of the Black Hand gang in the United States, and several of his fellow conspirators, were ar rested early in June in Columbus and Marion, Ohio, where much evidence has been gath ered against the organization. The work of the Cincinnati officers tends to show that there is a national Black Hand organization in the United States allied with a similar one in Sicily, and working in connection with the Mafia. The Superintendent of Prisons for New York proposes to ask the next legislature of that state to take the initiative in deporting to their own countries alien criminals. It is now a federal law that aliens can be deported who within three years after their arrival in this country have been convicted of crime. Some of the leaders of the New York legisture are understood to be in sympathy with the project, which would relieve the state of considerable expense. Professor A. V. Dicey now retires from the Vinerian Chair of English Law at Oxford after twenty-seven years' tenure of office. While he is in his seventy-fourth year, re tirement is not due to ill-health. Professor Dicey, before taking the professorship the traditions of which his scholarly gifts have so nobly upheld, was a Fellow of Balliol, then a Fellow of All Souls', and Honorary Fellow of Trinity, and was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1863. Ambassador Bryce attended the session of the Massachusetts House of Representatives June 10, and in response to a request for a speech expressed the greeting and good will of the mother country. "The state legisla tures in America," he said, "have followed the ancient traditions of Parliament—even more closely than has your national Congress. This is especially true of the legislatures of Massachusetts and Virginia. Here you have the principle of requiring the filing of bills, the reference to and consideration by committees, the three readings that all may know and understand each matter, and the two branches that everything may be properly heard and the liability of mistakes lessened." In the election of Cook County judges at Chicago June 7, all of the sixteen judges of the Superior Court and Circuit Court were re-elected except three. To succeed these three, Judges Edward O. Brown, R. W. Clifford, and Francis Adams, who were all Democratic candidates for re-election, Kickham Scanlan, Adelor J. Petit, and Jesse A. Baldwin, all Republicans, were chosen. The complexion of the Circuit Court has thus changed from a Democratic to a Republi can majority. The defeat of the able Judge Adams, and probably the election of the in experienced Scanlan, were due to the efforts of the labor unions. Six of the judges elected
had failed to receive the indorsement of the Chicago Bar Association. The fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Northwestern University Law School was observed at Chicago June 7-8, by a National Conference on Criminal Law and Criminology, which was attended by specialists, judges, and lawyers gathering from all parts of the country. Prof. Rosooe Pound, who had been chiefly instrumental in organizing the conference, stated its aims in an opening address and in troduced Gov. Deneen, who greeted the visit ors. James Hagerman of St. Louis was elected chairman of the conference. Prof. E. A. Ross of the University of Wisconsin predicted that the near future would see a comprehensive anthropological survey for the purpose of securing more accurate informa tion regarding criminals by means of labora tories conducted in a systematic manner. This proposal elicited some discussion; as did also that regarding police training, some delegates urging the advantages of a school which should give policemen some under standing of what legal evidence of crime im plies. Clark Bell of New York, editor of the Medico-Legal Journal, contributed a paper on "The Indeterminate Sentence." As a result of the action of the conference a permanent body to be known as the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology was or ganized, with Dean John H. Wigmore of Northwestern University Law School as pres ident, and Prof. Edwin R. Keedy of the Uni versity of Indiana as secretary. This organ ization will immediately give its attention to the revision and alteration of the criminal jurisprudence of this country. Congress will be asked by a committee of the Institute to establish a bureau to collect criminal statistics, and a committee was selected to investigate criminal laws in foreign countries to guide in the reform of our own criminal law. Sixteen topics were turned over to various committees for investigation during the coming year. These were culled from one hundred and thirty-four topics submitted to the confer ence for consideration, and reports upon them will be offered at the next annual meeting. The topics are divided into three classes, bearing on offenders against the law, on the organization and training of officers of the law, and on criminal law and procedure. The conference was closed by a banquet at which Supreme Court Justice Orrin H. Carter presided as toastmaster. The delib erations of the conference are to be published in the form of a treatise on criminology and widely circulated. The following are the committee chairmen: permanent organization committee, William E. Mikell, professor of criminal law in the University of Pennsylva nia; periodical committee, Adolf Meyer of New York; criminologist affiliations com mittee, Joseph P. Byers of New York; statis tics bureau, John Korne of the United States census bureau.
