EPE
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
FC.O.885
3 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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tions had been already balanced by the first murder; and thus the suffering from the extra murder and from the three imprisonments for life is to be charged against the law as a net result of human suffering which it might have averted.
doubt."
I will now apply these deductions to the rule Bearing of the benefit of a of law that the person accused is to have the benefit of a doubt. If the object of Penal Law be to spare human suffering, it would seem at first sight that the benefit of a doubt should be given to that conclusion by which, if right, the greater amount of human suffering would be spared, and by which, if wrong, the lesser amount of human suffering would be inflicted. The first But presumption, then, is against the rule. although the chief object of Penal Law is to spare human suffering, this is not its only object. Another of its objects is to execute justice, and thereby to cherish the reverence for justice and law in the popular mind; and it may be worth while to do this even at the cost of some con- siderable amount of human suffering not other- wise compensated. The question arises, therefore, whether justice and the popular sense of justice is more injured and the popular respect for law more impaired by the impunity of a murderer, or by the execution for murder of a man who has not committed the murder for which he is executed. If the error of his execution is never found out, there will be no offence to the popular sense of justice; but if it is found out,
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there is no doubt that the popular sense of justice will be more revolted by the execution of the wrong man than it would have been by the escape of a murderer. The effect will be, not that the popular love of justice will be impaired; on the contrary, it will be exercised, and, perhaps, invigorated; whilst by the escape of a murderer, if the fact of the murder should be afterwards placed beyond doubt, it would be conversely exercised, but perhaps rather shaken in its foundations owing to the less value apparently attached to justice by the law when it permits a groundless doubt to operate a defeat of justice; and the respect for law would be lowered. The question is, therefore, whether on the whole the more murders and the more of human suffering occasioned by throwing the benefit of a doubt in what, on the ground of specific suffering alone, should be regarded as the wrong way, is or is not more than compensated by a balance in favour of impunity due to its effect on the public mind as compared with the effect of punishment for crimes not committed.
Now in estimating these elements of value, we have to look at what may be the practical effect. where trial by jury is established, of a knowledge reaching the public uind that a man not guilty of a particular murder has been erroneously convicted. It may be that for some time to come juries would shrink from convicting in very clear cases of murder, and thus impunity would be made more in the endeavour to make it less.
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE Reference_