Science and the Criminal

by C. Ainsworth Mitchell

The prisoner set up an alibi, and the jury, although as they stated subsequently, not believing in this alibi, returned a verdict of “Not guilty.”

The question of the possibility of a person firing a gun or pistol being identified by the light of the flash was submitted to a committee of scientific men in Paris, in 1809, and their conclusion was that such identification was not possible.

On the other hand, the evidence in a case that was tried shortly afterwards in France indicated that under favourable conditions the face of the person who had fired a gun might be recognised. A man had fired at another at night, and a woman who was near at the time, swore at the trial that the flash had plainly shown her the face of the assailant. Similar evidence was also given by the man who had been wounded.

Experiments to determine this point were made by Desgranges, at Lyons, and from the results of these he concluded that there was a possibility of such identification at a short distance from the flash of the gun, provided that the night was very dark and that there was no other source of light to interfere with the gun-flash; but that if the flash was very pronounced, or much smoke was produced it was not possible to recognise the person firing the gun.

Juries have always been reluctant to convict a prisoner upon evidence of this kind. For instance, at the trial of a man named White at Croydon in 1839, the prisoner was accused of firing at a gentleman while he was driving home in an open trap, and his intended victim, who was shot in the elbow, swore positively that the flash of the gun showed so clearly the features of his assailant that he was absolutely certain that he was the prisoner. The defendant denied the charge and, notwithstanding the positive statement of the principal witness, was acquitted.

There are other instances, however, where convictions have resulted from such momentary glimpses. Thus, at the trial of some highwaymen in 1799, which is quoted by Paris and Fonblanque (1823), it was stated by a Bow Street officer that he, together with some of his companions, had been fired at by the prisoners upon a dark night, upon Hounslow Heath. He swore that the flash of the pistol enabled him to see that one of the assailants, a man named Haines, who had come up to the side of the coach, was riding upon a dark brown horse which had certain peculiarities about its head and shoulders, and that the rider was wearing a rough brown coat. Afterwards, said the witness, he had seen the same horse in a stable in Long Acre, in London, and had recognised it as the one upon which the man was riding by its curious square head and thick shoulders. The jury believed the evidence of this witness, and the prisoner was convicted.

A case within the experience of a former Recorder of Birmingham (Hill) is mentioned in Wills’ Circumstantial Evidence. A man was committed for trial at the Assizes at Derby, in 1840, on the charge of shooting at a young woman.

She was prepared to swear that she had recognised him by the momentary flash of the gun.

Experiments were made to determine to what extent reliance could be placed upon such identification, and the conclusion drawn from these was that “all stories of recognition from the flash of a gun or pistol must be founded on a fallacy.”

In addition to these, several instances, collected from different sources, are referred to in Taylor’s Medical Jurisprudence, where the general conclusion is drawn that occasionally it may be possible to identify an assailant in this way.