Mistrial

“ The last scene is the inquest: the coffin is brought in, but the murderer dare not look upon the face of his victim; a sham investigation is held, and he is cleared by the verdict of the jury; but other watchful eyes have been regarding the proceedings; keen detectives have been at work, and they now step in, unknown to the public, and take quiet possession of the corpse; the stomach is removed for analysis, and a chemist of great reputation takes charge of it; poison has been found; positive proof of your lover's guilt have been obtained, and he will suffer the penalty of his crime. ”

“ When counsel for the defendants arose to address you in a three days' argument, for the first time, you, as jurymen, and we, as representatives of the people, were notified of the theory of the defense; that is, that there was a great conspiracy on the part of the people; that there was a conspiracy to hang innocent men; a conspiracy to murder under the guise of the law, and the gentleman was so earnest in that statement that he carried it all through his argument to the jury. ”

“ May it please your lordship, and you gentlemen of the jury, I am of counsel for the King against the prisoner at the bar. You have heard that he stands indicted for a murder done upon the person of a young girl. Such crimes as this you may perhaps reckon to be not uncommon, and, indeed, in these times, I am sorry to say it, there is scarce any fact so barbarous and unnatural but what we may hear almost daily instances of it. ”

“ Thereupon the jail sentry produced Thakchacha and Bahulya and made them stand within the railed enclosure before the judge. As the petty jury were being empanelled, the court interpreter called out loudly: Prisoners at the bar! you have been charged with forging Company’s paper: have you committed this crime or not? The accused replied: We do not even know what is meant by forgery, or by Company’s paper: we are only simple cultivators: we do not concern ourselves with things of this kind: that is the concern of our English rulers. ”

“ The assize then bifurcated into the grand jury of twelve to twenty-four men and the petty jury or jury of verdict of twelve men, which replaced ordeal, compurgation, and trial by combat as the method of finding the truth. The men of the petty jury as well as those of the grand jury were expected to know or to acquaint themselves with the facts of the cases. The men of the petty jury tended to be the same men who were on the grand jury.
Felony included such crimes as homicide, arson, rape, robbery, burglary, and larceny. Murder still meant secret homicide. ”

“ I therefore submit to you, your Honour, and to you, gentlemen of the jury, two distinct lines of defence which do not conflict, and which are therefore valid under the law. We deny that any murder has been committed, that any motive for murder has been shown, that any body of the crime has been produced. ”

“ And now, my lord, I come to the point which doubtless you and the gentlemen of the jury have been waiting for—the question of motive. Why should the prisoner, a man of evident refinement, a gentleman on behalf of whose character my learned friend, his counsel, will no doubt bring a cloud of witnesses, commit this awful crime? Why should he shoot this woman? ”

“ Suspicion, gentlemen of the jury, only points to one man; and to that man suspicion points with so unerring a finger, that the criminal stands revealed in the broad glare of detected guilt. That man is the prisoner at the bar. On the discovery of the murder, the returned wanderer, the penitent and dutiful son, was of course sought for. ”

“ But, gentlemen, the [277] crime we are trying is a crime of an assassin. It is the work of one who does his foul deeds beyond the sight and hearing of men. All it means is this: That when one sees the crime committed or one hears the crime committed then the testimony of him that sees or hears is the testimony of a witness who saw it or heard it and is direct evidence. All other evidence is circumstantial evidence. ”

“ And yet, your Honor, the prosecution rests its case upon the testimony of an ignorant, vindictive savage, who swears—who solemnly testifies under oath, your Honor—that she saw this identical poison, and no other, floating on the surface of the water in the well several hours after she claims to have heard a noise; that it was there, plainly to be seen, several hours after my innocent client is known to have been at work in her mistress's kitchen and was seen in her mistress's garden, openly and constantly in view of the whole community. ”

“ If a person be charged with the commission of murder, piracy, arson, robbery, or forgery within the United States of America, and ‘charged upon such evidence of criminality as according to the law of the place where the fugitive or person so charged shall be found would justify his apprehension and commitment for trial, if the crime or offence had been there committed,’ he may be apprehended, and his case is to be heard, and considered. ”

“ The traffic in human blood, with such an object as we have already pointed out, appeared too fearful a crime to be contemplated; and all suspended their judgment until the issue of the solemn inquiry of a jury should decide upon the allegations which were made. Upon that inquisition, however, the most dreadful apprehensions which were entertained as to the result were fully realised, and the reports which had been circulated with reference to the offences charged against the prisoners, were amply proved to be well founded. ”

“ With material so abundant, so varied and complicated, it will be necessary to use some discretion, to follow certain clearly defined lines of choice. I propose in these pages to adopt the principle embodied in the title and to deal more particularly with the “mysteries” of crime and its incomplete, partial, or complete detection; with offences not immediately brought home to their perpetrators; offences prepared in secret, committed by offenders who have long remained perhaps entirely unknown, but who have sometimes met with their true deserts ”

“ All the forgeries are charged on, or supposed to be, the act of one man—the prisoner; yet not only does no single witness trace the faintest resemblance, in any of the alleged forgeries, to the handwriting of the prisoner, or Mademoiselle Le Normand, but an able witness for the Crown, Mr Lizars, negatives such a fact. ”

“ The learned counsel for the prosecution, he said, had very properly impressed upon the jury that they must lose sight of any such side issue as class-distinction, and form their opinion of the case by the light of hard, cold reason and the dry facts of the evidence. That evidence they had had put before them in the most careful and patient manner, and it was his own especial function, said his lordship, to explain the law on the subject of such of it as appeared conflicting. ”

“ The enemy of society and law studies the tactics of justice, and frequently the plan of detection, if penetrated by the culprit, becomes his surest chart of escape. There may, after all,—but I don’t think so,—have been two persons engaged in this series of murders; and in that light read the short recital that follows, and perhaps, when the mystery shall be resolved by judicial precision, you may turn back to this singular incident and compare it with the concluding scenes of the catastrophes I have been treating of. ”

“ When one knows who committed a murder, to conceal that knowledge is to be an accessory after the fact. The law demands that the knowledge shall instantly be placed at the service of the police. I am not considering information given with regard to murder as treacherous. The cases I have in my mind are those in which the crime was incited by certain individuals who for purposes of their own intended to betray the criminal. ”

“ The officers representing the prosecution are servants of Government, and every witness for the prosecution is also a servant of Government. In brief, the whole case against my client is nothing but pork, and a disgrace to the Government of India, and to the Honourable East India Company, who have sanctioned this trial, and who put every obstacle in my way to prevent my coming out to defend my client. ”

“ Any observer who should have seen the neatly-dressed lawyer peering into the broken doors and up the black staircases of Thomas Street, would naturally have supposed his visit connected with some revelation of crime, and that he was either looking up a witness whose testimony might be necessary to save a perilled burglar from Sing Sing, or taking measures to keep one hidden who might have told too much if brought upon the witness-stand. ”

“ Mine is not a singular experience, as most police and prison officials will say. Indeed, the general public themselves must have noticed that there are few mysterious crimes committed which are not confessed to by persons who could not possibly have been guilty. ”

“ In fine, not only under the positive system of criminal procedure, which demands of the judge, in addition to legal conceptions of crime, some anthropological and sociological knowledge of criminals, but even at the present day it is more correct to say that the jury is concerned with the crime—that is, in the words of Binding, with a legal fact, and not merely a material fact ”

“ An Australian correspondent adds another example. Long after Fisher’s case, this gentleman was himself present at a trial in Maitland, New South Wales. A servant-girl had dreamed that a missing man told her who had killed him, and where his body was concealed. She, being terrified, wanted to leave the house, but her mistress made her impart the story to the chief constable, a man known to my informant, who also knew, and names, the judge who tried the case. ”

“ Could the witnesses who appeared on the Court-martial be themselves tried, they would also suffer for the very same and only crime of which I have been found guilty. But I am to be the victim. Alas! my youthful inexperience, and not depravity of will, is the sole cause to which I can attribute my misfortunes. ”

“ He had not paused at my appeal, and the mist had swallowed him. But at the break in my sentence his voice came back in good-natured tones, and I heard:
"Supper will be ready at nine, and there are beds for all. Enter, sir; you are the first to arrive, but the others cannot be far behind." ”

“ And forthwith all the solemn judges, fierce military gentlemen, upper and under clergymen, detectives, hangmen, and officers of State are to try and sentence, to cut and stab, to pursue and lock up, to preach against and consign to damnation all who commit this new "crime," as if it were, indeed, a real crime in the eyes of God or man. ”

“ We may accept the unpleasant fact without theorising further as to the genesis of crime. I propose in these pages to take criminals as I find them; to accept crime as an actual fact, and in its multiform manifestations; to deal with its commission, the motives that have caused it, the methods by which it has been perpetrated, the steps taken—sometimes extraordinarily ingenious and astute, sometimes foolishly forgetful and ineffective—to conceal the deed and throw the pursuers{4} off the scent; on the other hand, I shall set forth in some detail the agencies employed for detection and exposure. ”

“ The criminals engaged in the perpetration of a crime could, if such testimony was of any judicial weight, arrange a circle, produce the manifestations, or the similitude of manifestations, and direct attention to certain innocent parties, when suspicion would give time for the real culprits to escape. ”

“ But if, notwithstanding all the Rubs which we have seen to lie in the Way, the Indictment is found, and the Thief brought to his Trial, still he hath sufficient Hopes of escaping, either from the Caution of the Prosecutor's Evidence, or from the Hardiness of his own.
In Street Robberies the Difficulty of convicting a Criminal is extremely great. ”

“ The leader in an important case has been in a stuffy court all day, burdened with his wig and gown, seeing all the dust and stains of unswept corners of human nature; accusing, with upraised finger, the brazen witness who has just perjured himself ”

“ If the evidence points clearly to a particular person as the murderer, we shall name that person in the verdict. But we are not primarily investigating a crime; we are investigating a death. The criminal investigation is for the police. ”

“ The grand jury was directed to present all persons suspected of robbery, murder, theft, etc., when they were promptly sent to the water ordeal to prove their innocence.1229 Thus it afforded an unfailing solution to all doubts and simplified greatly the administration of criminal law, for it was equally applicable to cases of individual prosecutions. ”

“ But they not only supply strike-breakers, perjurers, spies, and even assassins, they have also been successful in making an utter farce of trial by jury. It appears that even some of the best known American detectives are not above the packing of a jury. ”

“ A boy of thirteen is tried, say for picking the pocket of some subject of her Majesty, and the offence is about as clearly proved as an offence can be. He is called upon for his defence, and contents himself with a little declamation about the jurymen and his country—asserts that all the witnesses have committed perjury, and hints that the police force generally have entered into a conspiracy ‘again’ him. ”

“ A justice might issue a warrant for the arrest, conduct the search himself, effect the capture, examine the accused with and without witnesses, extract a confession by alternately cajoling him as a friend and bullying him as a magistrate, commit him, and finally give damning evidence against him at his trial. ”

“ Could the jury, in the face of such a marvellous coincidence of times, of means, of objects, believe that a number of different persons were concerned in promoting the prisoner's objects and interests, and he all the while profoundly ignorant of what was being done? The documents are all proved forgeries ”

“ To such an attitude there is but one explanation: you tried to ward off suspicions, and therefore you took a direct part in the murder."
Answer. "You want to find lies in everything. If I spoke some untruths, it was solely to conceal certain facts of my private life, certain 'friendships' I had had."
(The next remark of the examining magistrate was a fantastic one:)
Question. "It is interesting to observe, at any rate, as an oddity, that your story of the crime and the mise en scène appears to bear the stamp of your own imagination. ”