The Kirwan case : illustrating the danger of conviction on circumstantial evidence, and the necessity of granting new trials in criminal cases.

Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Kirwan case : illustrating the danger of conviction on circumstantial evidence, and the necessity of granting new trials in criminal cases. 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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    high authority of Mrs. Bentley’s testimony, amongst many others ! How many could stand the same test with a similar result ? When we add to this, that they were not (as assumed at the trial) to have quitted their lodgings the next day, [see No. 3] but had taken them until November ; that they did not return home on the previous evenings much earlier, hut later [No. 3] than their proposed time of returning on the 6th of September ; what, we say, should be the true nature of the inference from his former demeanour to his wife, as it thus appears ? Does it any longer supply a motive for the deed ? Is it not rather a strong presumption that he was incapable of committing it ? We next come to a more important part of the case, as bearing more directly upon the imputed crime ; we mean the hearing of cries from the island by five several witnesses ; and here the nature of the evidence deserves the most careful examination, not as reflecting (in the main) on‘the credibility of the witnesses, but as tending to throw some light on the mysterious aspect of events. Perhaps no better exemplification could be found of the well-knoAMi descriptio]! of human testimony, that it is “ substan- tial truth under circumstantial variety the substan- tial truth being the point in which all the witnesses agree, namely, that cries were heard ; the circum- stantial variety being the discrepancies respecting the interval of time, the number, position, and nature of the cries.* As to the nature of the cries, it is scarcely * There were, liowcver, other serious discrepancies between the depositions and tlic evidence at tl>c trial.