Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 23.pdf/35

 Some Reﬂections on the Crippen Trial After the trial was over the motion

was renewed. It then appeared that the matter complained of consisted of

15

Mr. Justice Darling said:

"Even if a

confession had really been made, it

“Murderer's Little

might still have been contempt to publish it. It might have been of such

Mistakes." “Flying from justice, Dr. Crippen forgot all about wireless teleg

a kind as would have been inadmissible in evidence." He further said that

raphy,

so long as the judges sat there, they

an article headed

it brought about his capture.

bolical skill and cunning with which the remains were mutilated), who knows what little missing particle of evidence he may have omitted to obliterate,

were determined that trial by newspaper should not be substituted for trial by jury. It was argued on this motion that at the time the cable was published (it was immediately after Crippen was

and it may prove the very thing to ﬁx

arrested) no

his fate?" The court decided that this paragraph was, in the language

pending.

In the murder itself (despite the dia

of the applicant for the rule, "calculated to interfere with the cause of justice,”

and ordered the editor of the paper to pay a ﬁne of £ 100, and to stand com

legal

proceedings

were

The court unanimously held

that an issue of a warrant was com mencement of proceedings, so far as the question of contempt for discussing the matter sub judice was concerned.

The court imposed a ﬁne of £200 upon

mitted until the ﬁne was paid. It was disclosed during the argument of the case that the particular editor who had passed the paragraph and caused it to

the editor who had permitted the cable to be published.

be inserted in the paper had been discharged by the proprietors of the

proprietors of the Evening News, be

paper for having inserted the para

course of the trial, a statement to the

graph

effect

A similar application was made for a rule against the Daily Chronicle for

Crippen asserted in his evidence, had agreed to secrete him in the cargo of the

having published two items of news

ship and to pass him on shore while

with respect to the Crippen case. One was to the effect that a sensational discovery had just been made that a

deadly poison had been purchased by Crippen some time before Mrs. Crippen's death. The other was the following paragraph from the Canadian correspon dent of the paper: “I have conﬁdence

in the authority on which I cabled you the information sent last night, and I

am assured today from the same source,

that Crippen admitted in the presence of witnesses that he had killed his wife,

but denied that the act was murder.” Upon hearing this paragraph read Mr.

justice Pickford said: “Can you imagine more

pernicious

gossip

than

that?"

There was a third application of a similar nature against the editor and cause they had published, during the that the

quartermaster,

who,

the cargo was being discharged, had

been found in London and had been in consultation with the prosecuting coun sel for the Crown. In this case the editor was ﬁned £200. These incidents show how decided

the English courts are, to use Mr. Justice Darling's language, in insisting that in all trials for capital offenses “trial by newspaper is not to‘ be sub stituted for trial by jury" in England. It is noteworthy that during the pro ceedings the London and provincial newspapers devoted many columns each day to a report of the proceedings, but the report in every instance, while it was introduced by certain descriptive