Need of Court of Criminal Appeal
Lord Esher, in The Times of August 17, 1889, strongly advocated a court of criminal appeal, and The Times, in an article of the same date, supported the views expressed by Lord Esher and by Lord Fitzgerald, as follows:
“A court of appeal, as Lord Esher sketches it, would not be open to the objections which can be fairly urged against our present informal method of procedure. The Home Secretary, as a quasi court of appeal, is, as Lord Fitzgerald remarks, not a judge and has not the power of a judge.... The judgment pronounced by a strong court of criminal appeal, such as Lord Esher’s letter suggests, would do more to satisfy the public mind than the best efforts of the Home Secretary could possibly do. The reform which Lord Esher advocates has been long called for, and Lord Fitzgerald did well to press it on the Government.... What the public feel is that they would rather have the fallibility of trained judges than the fallibility of an individual sitting without any of the apparatus with which a court of law is enabled to detect truth from falsehood, and perhaps unconsciously confusing the prerogative of mercy with justice.”
THE BRIEF OF MESSRS. LUMLEY & LUMLEY
This brief of Messrs. Lumley & Lumley, characterized in the preceding letter of Secretary Blaine as “very able” and “unanswerable,” is too long for reproduction in these pages in its entirety, and hence only the main points are given. The document was prepared at the instance of Lord Russell of Killowen for submission to himself and three other Queen’s Counsel, with a view of obtaining a new trial. It may interest the reader to know that the money required to make this searching analysis by Messrs. Lumley & Lumley was raised by a popular subscription in America, through the good offices of the New York World. The eminent Queen’s counsel, after a full consideration of the analysis of the case, submitted the following opinion: