Nixon's Hard Line

Having worked "to achieve a lasting peace in the world," President Nixon served notice last week that he has turned to the task of gaining "peace in our own land." It was time, said the President, for an escalation in the war on crime. Devoting the sixth of his series of State of the Union messages to the criminal-justice system, Nixon claimed that "dramatic progress" had been made in his first four years. That, he said, proved the merits of his philosophy "that the only way to attack crime in America is the way crime attacks our people--without pity."

Some of his more interesting specific recommendations:

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. The President urged a new federal law imposing the death penalty for war-related treason, sabotage and espionage and where death results from such serious federal offenses as skyjacking, kidnaping and assaulting a federal official. To meet the Supreme Court's objections to the arbitrary and capricious way death penalties have been meted out, Nixon laid down a meticulously detailed procedure. A jury would first decide guilt or innocence; then at a subsequent hearing, a judge and jury would consider whether there had been any mitigating circumstances or whether the crime had been particularly heinous. Where the jury concluded that the crime had been especially serious and there had been no mitigating factors, death would be mandatory. It is not certain, however, that the Supreme Court would go along since prosecutors, jurors and the President would all continue to have discretion on whether to consider reduced charges or on whose sentence to commute.

DRUGS. Anyone found guilty of trafficking in more than four ounces of a substance containing heroin or morphine and who had a previous drug-felony conviction would automatically receive life imprisonment without possibility of parole. The lowest penalty for a trafficker would be from five to 15 years for a first offense involving less than four ounces. Accused pushers would not be allowed bail unless they could prove that they were not a "danger" to the community. That proposal constitutes a substantial hardening of the Nixon-proposed general preventive-detention law, which so far has failed to work very well in the District of Columbia.

INSANITY. To end "the present absurd use of the insanity defense," no plea on the defendant's mental state would be permitted at trial except the contention that he did not know what he was doing --"for example, whether the defendant knew he was pulling the trigger of a gun." If the jury decided that he had actually committed a crime, the convicted defendant could then introduce broad evidence on his sanity so that the judge could decide whether he should be imprisoned or sent to a mental institution.

The President also suggested increasing the penalties for convicted arsonists, leaders of organized crime and persons using dangerous weapons while committing a crime. He promised as well to offer legislation curbing the sale and manufacture of "Saturday night special" handguns. Virtually everything Nixon proposed seemed certain to spark controversy, with the possible exception of the insanity proposal. Most experts have become convinced that a jury trial is a poor place to determine mental health. Nor did the President seem to find much in the criminal code in need of easing. One notable exception: it will no longer be a federal offense to detain "a United States carrier pigeon."

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