Misdirection as to Administration With Intent to Kill
There was also an attempt by the prosecution to suggest an attempt to administer medicine, arising out of an occasion when James Maybrick said to her, “You have given me the wrong medicine again,” from which it appears that on the Friday, the day before death, Mrs. Maybrick was not giving him anything at all, but was trying to get him to take some medicine from Nurse Callery, who was endeavoring to induce him to take it. This was one of the medicines ordered by Dr. Humphreys, and was found free from arsenic. The judge did not refer to this in his summing-up,
but reference to it is introduced here
because it exhausts the whole evidence, with the exception of the Valentine’s meat juice incident, as to any suggestions or even of any occasions of attempt to administer, while Mr. Matthews advised the Queen that “the evidence leads clearly to the conclusion that the prisoner administered and attempted to administer arsenic to her husband with intent to murder,” which formed his ground for consigning this woman to penal servitude for life. No evidence, either of any act of administration or of any act of attempt to administer either with or without felonious attempt, was given at the trial, which possibly could have led any person to any such conclusion, with the single exception of the Valentine’s meat juice; and as none of that was administered after it had been in Mrs. Maybrick’s hands, the utmost that could be said of it (assuming that she did put any arsenic into it) is that it was an attempt to administer, either feloniously or otherwise. It is submitted that the judge misdirected the jury as to this incident, in that he did not tell them that the mere evidence of an attempt to administer arsenic was not sufficient—that they must be satisfied that the attempt to administer was with a mens rea and with an intent to murder.