A number of important murder cases will be readily recalled where years have elapsed between the conviction of the accused and the argument in the Court of Appeals. Not only does this unnecessary delay deprive the judgment of conviction of much of its effect as an example and deterrent precedent, but in cases of reversal and new trials evidence is sometimes lost, and the guilty thus escape. In the latest reported murder case from New York county, People _vs._ Lustig,[54] the defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree in June, 1910, but the appeal was not brought on for hearing in the Court of Appeals until June 14, 1912, when it was decided and reversed within two weeks after the argument, viz., on June 29, 1912. In the meantime, as we are informed, material witnesses had disappeared, and the defendant is now at large on his own recognizance, and probably will not be tried again! Another case of apparently inexcusable delay is People _vs._ Koerner.[55] The crime of murder was committed in September, 1896. The defendant was indicted within a month thereafter, and was convicted of murder in the first degree on March 1, 1897. The appeal was argued in the Court of Appeals within four court months, on October 22, 1897, and the judgment was reversed on November 23, 1897. The case was then re-tried, and resulted in a judgment of guilty of murder in the second degree on March 15, 1898. The records of the courts show that the appeal from this judgment was not brought on for argument in the Appellate Division until December 12, 1906, and then resulted in an affirmance by that court on January 11, 1907, and that the appeal was not argued in the Court of Appeals until February 19, 1908, when the judgment was affirmed without opinion in less than three weeks! Yet for the delays in these and similar cases the courts are criticized and their administration of criminal justice intemperately assailed by the press and other critics, notwithstanding the diligence of the judges in disposing of appeals when duly presented for their consideration. It may be true that the pressure of innumerable cases compels the district attorney in New York county to delay the argument of appeals; but the remedy is to provide him with additional competent assistants and certainly not to indulge in indiscriminate criticism or unfounded abuse of the courts, or to resort to panaceas of reform in criminal procedure, which too often only multiply technicalities, deprive the individual of necessary protection, and create more or less confusion.