The Daily Dispatch: March 11, 1861., [Electronic resource]

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Suggestions to Courts and Juries.

--The Governor, who is from his official position better acquainted with the practical workings of the Virginia system for administering justice than anybody else, has recommended to the Legislature an amendment to the criminal laws, so as to prohibit any person from being confined in the Penitentiary for a shorter period than three years. He says it requires at least three years to acquire a trade, and those who are confined for a shorter period are a burden to the institution and an expense to the State. In all such cases, let some other punishment be substituted. The ends of justice would be as well accomplished — perhaps better — and the Treasury would be relieved from an onerous and unnecessary burden.

He suggests, also, that when a convict is discharged from the Penitentiary, it be made the duty of the Superintendent to cause him or her to be removed, and to pay the necessary expense of removal to the place at which he or she was convicted. The Governor truthfully says: ‘"It is not just to the citizens of Richmond that such characters should be thrown out upon them, to whom they must prove a burden and a serious annoyance." ’

We recommend that portion of the suggestions applicable to them, to those who are called upon to award punishment.