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12 B. Bull. B. Ass'n Erie Cnty. 1 (1949)

handle is hein.baecl/ericoubarb0012 and id is 1 raw text is: THE BAR BULLETIN . 62PO L GE PA ID BOF uffalo, N. v. lir THE BAR ASSOCIATION OF ERIE COUNTY Permit No. 2639 Vol. 12-No. 1 Hotel Statler, Buffalo, 2, N. Y. February, 1949 Progress Report Of The Bar Association T HE President and Directors of the Association cor- dially invite the lawyers of Buffalo and Erie County to contribute to the columns of this-the enlarged Bar Bulletin. Besides articles pertaining to up-to-the-minute legal topics you are urged to send in matters of interest to the legal fraternity and the community as a whole, as well as constructive criticism or suggestions. Last year we received the whole-hearted and able co-operation of the Dean, the Faculty and the Student Body of the University of Buffalo Law School in the publication of the Bulletin. The results were roundly acclaimed by the Bar. This year, again, the Law School is giving its utmost help in the same direction. The work being done by the students is accomplished under distinct handicaps because of the construction of the new law school. Any lawyer having a library available for the use of one or more students of the University, at a time when it is convenient, is urged to lend such facility to the embryonic barrister. It is requested that this information be supplied either to this Association or to the Law School. It is in the best interest of each individual practi- tioner, as well as the Bar as a whole, that each lawyer in Buffalo and Erie County be a member of the Asso- ciation. For this reason, and because of the widened scope of the activities of the Association, it is the aim of the officers, directors and membership committee to impress upon non-members the necessity for a united front and the advantages to be derived therefrom. If you know of a prospective member who has not been contacted please call William J. Daetsch, Jr., Chairman of the Committee, or the Secretary at Headquarters. Your Association has been housed in the Hotel Statler for more than a year. Numerous social and edu- cational gatherings have been held in these newly furnished and decorated rooms. These Headquarters are yours and you are urged to use them. Each year this Association brings you outstanding speakers for the noonday meetings and for various functions. PROGRESS REPORT (Continued on Page Three) Motives For Murder- Fiction And Fact By CHARLES S. DESMOND Associate Judge of the Court of Appeals F ICTIONAL murders are much stranger than mur- ders in fact. The complex motives, intricate plan- ning and devious methods with which our writers of de- tective stories tease and confuse us, are missing from the records of real murders. Murders in life spring from sudden rage or brooding hate or lust, jealousy, greed or drunkenness. You will look through a lot of court records before you find a homicide whose motivation would serve for the simplest radio mystery, much less for a full-length detective story. The mystery writer would have to mix and blend into one plot the ingredi- ents of a dozen true life crimes-and maybe that is what the writer does. The New York Court of Appeals has been passing on murder cases for just about a hundred years. In the century since 1847, it has dealt with almost a thou- sand of them. As a representative sample, one hundred such prosecutions are here examined and analyzed. The striking fact is that in every instance the motive shown was a single and simple one. The two largest groups, each containing twenty-four cases, are killings growing out of quarrels, and those committed during thefts of one kind or other. The quarrels were of every possible kind, and in most the trouble started over trivial dis- putes and disagreements. The theft cases, too, were of every conceivable description, though the majority had to do with armed hold-ups. For some reason, the so- called crimes of passion (those not done for gain) have become fewer with the years, and the murders for money have grown correspondingly more numerous. The complex controls of modern life, and the slow dis- appearance of the pioneer aspects of our civilization, have tamed down the wilder passions, it would seem. But the root of all evil grows apace, with no sign of a crop failure. Next in numerical importance are the husband-and- wife killings. In sixteen of our homicide cases a husband MOTIVES FOR MURDER (Continued on Page Two)

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