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 London Legal Letter.

435

LONDON LEGAL LETTER. London, August 5, 1899.

inferences they may draw, or however wrong their verdict may be, or no matter to what A RECENT case in which a domestic ser vant was found guilty of the murder of extent the judge may exclude competent and her sister by sending a poisoned cake to her, relevant evidence, or how far he may mis and condemned to death, has awakened a direct the jury, there is absolutely no appeal fresh agitation in favor of the establishment from the verdict. This anomaly seems all the more monstrous when it is remembered that of a Court of Criminal Appeal in this coun try. In the case mentioned, the condemned in one court a judge may pronounce a sen tence of six months imprisonment for an of girl was admittedly feeble-minded. The sis ter whom she poisoned was an inmate of an fence for which another judge sitting in an insane ward in a workhouse. One of the adjoining court of concurrent jurisdiction parents was an imbecile, and two or three may consider it his duty to pronounce a other members of the family, it is claimed, sentence of five years' servitude. But the absurdity of the law is made strikingly ap are weak in intellect. The motive for the mur der was the life insurance of a few pounds parent when the result in the three following which the accused had taken out in a society cases is considered : (a) a doctor indicted which made an examination of the assured for having been guilty of gross negligence in and received payment of the premiums in the performance of his duties; (b) a direc small weekly contributions. The jury who tor charged with issuing a false balancefound the verdict of murder, recommended sheet; (e) a man accused of obtaining the guilty girl to mercy, and, it is asserted by money by false pretences. If in these cases the foreman, returned their verdict only in the the jury convict, none of the parties have any belief that their recommendation would be right of appeal, and no petition for a remis entertained and that the extreme penalty sion of the sentence would be entertained. would not be exacted. Immense petitions But if these accusations were made the were forwarded to the Home Secretary, with ground of civil actions, if the doctor was whom resides the pardoning power, and a sued for damages for negligence, the direc tor for fraud, and the accused in the third large number of influential members of Par liament respectfully requested that a respite illustration for a return of the money, all might be granted until a further examination three defendants would have the fullest right by specialist into the girl's mental condition of applying to the Court of Appeal for a could be made. These appeals were ineffec new trial, and, if so minded, could go to the tual, and the law was allowed to take its House of Lords on any point of error in the court of first instance or the Court of Appeal. course. It has taken more than a generation of Mr. George Lewis, one of the leading so licitors in England, and to whose energy and active and persistent agitation to procure the right of an accused to give evidence in his advocacy the recent change in the law per mitting accused persons to give evidence on own behalf, and although the new law has oath is largely due, has come forward as a been in successful operation for a number of champion in the cause of Criminal Appeal. months, there are still many lawyers and He draws attention to the fact that before the some judges who are actually opposed to it. But as there are probably very few persons accused enters the dock he knows that, how ever stupid the jury may be, whatever false who have not yet become reconciled to the