The criminal / by Havelock Ellis.

  • Ellis, Havelock, 1859-1939.
Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The criminal / by Havelock Ellis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    will send this girl to prison for some ten or fifteen years: we do not believe in the advantage of that, and we prefer to deliver her from the law altogether. They were, as the judge said, a very merciful jury. But it is not by shuffling evasions of law that civilisa- tion progresses. We need just and reasonable laws, not merciful juries. It is not to the advantage of society that young murderesses should wander at large, though it may very possibly be better than throwing them into the prison as at present consti- tuted. The merciful jury, as in the south of Italy, becomes the hysterical and too often venial jury. We cannot be too grateful for the courage and honesty with which, as a rule, English juries and judges fulfil their functions ; it is to this adherence to law that many intelligent foreign observers attribute the fact that criminality in England is in some respects less serious than one might be led to expect. If, however, this attitude is to be maintained, and we are to avoid the dangers of lying and cowardly verdicts, we must see to it that our law keeps pace with our knowledge and with our methods of social progress. The institution of the jury is well rooted in Eng- land, and on the whole very efficient. There is not likely to be any agitation for some time to come for its abolition, as there has been in Italy and France and Switzerland. But there is at all events one modification in our criminal courts which is urgently required. It is entirely opposed to the interests of justice, and therefore of society, that the scientific conclusions in a case should be thrust into a partisan position. Experts will often differ as lawyers often differ, but the lawyer is not more competent to decide on the science of the expert than the expert is