Historic Examples of British Injustice
The Home Office detects and corrects a larger number of erroneous verdicts than the public is aware. This arises from the secret and partial methods of remedying miscarriages of justice frequently adopted. The first object is to maintain the public belief in the infallibility of judges and juries. If an innocent person could slip out quietly, without shaking this belief, he might be permitted to do so. The Home Secretary is, in fact, a politician, who has little time to spare for the consideration of criminal cases, and furthermore must see to it that his conduct does not injure his party. Thus he is often deterred from interfering with verdicts and sentences by sheer timidity. When he affirms a sentence he can throw the greater part of the blame on others if he is afterward proved to be wrong; but when he reverses either verdict or sentence, he must take the whole responsibility upon himself. This is, I believe, the true explanation of the secret and partial reversals which are not unusual at the Home Office. The Home Secretary, as well as his subordinates, must frequently let “dare not wait upon I would.”
If a crime is committed and no one is brought to justice, the police are blamed; but if a person is convicted the police are praised, without regard as to whether the right person has been convicted. Hence there is usually a strong effort to beat up evidence against the person suspected, as in my case and that of Adolf Beck (see page 155), and to keep back anything in favor of the prisoner that comes to the knowledge of the police. When an appeal is made from the verdict to the Home Secretary, the first step is to consult the very judge who is responsible, in nine cases out of ten, for the erroneous verdict. It is easy to see that, where such reference is made, the judge is liable to be biased in support of his own rulings. How much more the ends of justice would be furthered by having the case retried!
God only knows how many men and women have been innocent of the charges brought against them, and for which they have been unjustly punished. I will mention a few only of many cases on record.
A man, Hebron by name, was convicted at Manchester, of murder. He was sentenced to death, but fortunately this was commuted to penal servitude for life. After serving two years the real murderer, a man named Peace, was discovered, and Hebron was “graciously pardoned.”
Another cruel case was that of John Kensall, who was convicted of murder, but, through action taken by the late Lord Chief Justice Russell, was shown to be innocent. The Home Office could not at first “see its way to interfere,” and had it not been for Lord Russell’s clear head and splendid generalship, by which the authorities at the Home Office were outwitted, he would not have been released so soon.
The case of the man Hay, wrongly convicted, was of a serious nature, showing that he was the victim of a conspiracy; yet had it not been for Sir William Harcourt’s instituting an investigation independent of the Home Office, it is very doubtful whether Hay would have been able to establish his innocence. But he did so, and a pardon was granted him.
It looks almost as if justice in England were growing of late more than ordinarily blind. Thrice, within three years, has the Home Secretary’s “pardon” been granted to men found to have been wrongfully convicted.
The average man takes it for granted that these hideous mistakes must, of necessity, be few and far between; but the criminologist knows better. He, at all events, is well aware that every year a number of innocent people are sentenced to suffer either an ignominious death upon the scaffold, or the long-drawn-out living death of penal servitude.