Reforms needed in criminal procedure / by H.A. Lediard.

  • Lediard, H. A. (Henry Ambrose), 1847-1932.
Date:
[1892]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Reforms needed in criminal procedure / by H.A. Lediard. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    criminal procedure, some of it is, no doubt, due to the uncertainty which surrounds the conduct of the Home Secretary in dealing with the private appeals made to him for his intervention in the cases of convicted prisoners. Take the liberation of Mrs. Osborne this year. Would a poor woman have been thus leniently treated? I have mentioned the case of Polizzione, ami it is worth another word added. In February, 1865, this man was tried for the murder of Ilarrington, found guilty, and sentenced to death by Baron Martin, who said he never heard more direct and conclusive evidence. Mr. Negretti, after the trial, obtained much new evidence, and Polizzione was respited ; Mogni, a cousin of Polizzione, who was tried for the manslaughter of Mr. Ilarrington, and being found guilty, was sentenced to five years penal servitude. Mogni confessed that he, and not Polizzione, stabbed Harrington. Polizzione was afterwards liberated on a free pardon. (See Annual Register, 1S65.) It has been put forward as an objection to the establishment of a Court of Criminal Appeal, that such a Court would weaken the position of the assize trials and diminish the responsibility of juries. To my way of thinking, nothing weakens our present system so much as the knowledge we have that occasionally undoubted criminals go scot free, and occasionally innocent persons are nearly hanged or sent to penal servitude. Eliminate the fallacies associated with our present system by providing a Court where mistakes can be publicly corrected, and the majesty of the law will be upheld. I am not aware that the appeals now provided for from the Courts of Summary Jurisdiction, the County Courts, and all Courts where civil business is transacted, have had any injurious influence upon justice in general; if it is so in the least degree. I have never heard of any proposal to abolish such appeals; on the other hand, many efforts have been made to harmonize criminal procedure to civil procedure by establishing a Court to which appeals might be made. Let it be clearly understood, that upon a question of a sale of a horse, or a dog, or a cow, appeal is allowed, but not upon a case which concerns the life of a man. It is merely by accident that there may be some informal re-investigation of the case by the Home Secretary. It depends upon whether local or public interest happens to be excited by it. If not, the man or woman is
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