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.
Exclusion of Prisoner’s Testimony
Mrs. Maybrick voluntarily told her solicitors, Mr. Arnold and Mr. Richard Cleaver, directly she was arrested and even before the inquest, that she had, at her husband’s urgent request, put a powder into a bottle of Valentine’s meat juice, but that she did not know, until Mrs. Briggs informed her that arsenic had been found in a bottle of meat juice, that the powder she had put in was assumably arsenic. [At the trial both Mr. Richard and Mr. Arnold Cleaver, her solicitors, offered to give evidence to this effect, but Justice Stephen refused to admit it.] She also tried to tell Mrs. Briggs the same thing, but the policeman stopped the conversation; and she also told it to her mother on her arrival. Mrs. Maybrick made no attempt at concealment about having put this powder in, although no one had seen her do it, and her solicitors, instead of relying as a line of defense on showing there was no “mens rea” in what she had done, kept back her account of what she had done. At the trial, however, after all the evidence for the prosecution had been concluded without a single witness speaking of her having put anything into anything, she insisted on telling the jury, as she had told her solicitors, that she did put a powder into a bottle of meat juice, in accordance with an urgent request of her husband’s, but that she did not know it was arsenic. If she did not know, there was no “mens rea.” Upon that evidence, and upon certain suspicious circumstances connected with her conduct in taking the meat juice into the dressing-room and replacing it in the bedroom, the judge, as it is submitted, misdirected the jury in the following passage:
“Mr. Michael Maybrick says: ‘Nothing was given to my brother out of that.’ That is to say, nothing was given to him out of the bottle of Valentine’s meat juice, which undoubtedly had arsenic in it. Its presence was detected, but of that bottle which was poisoned he certainly had none. He had a small taste of it before it was poisoned, given him by Nurse Gore.”
It is submitted that the words “before it was poisoned” is a gross misdirection.
Misdirection as to Identity of Meat-Juice Bottle
It may be convenient here to interpose the following remarks on the subject of the identity of the bottle. Counsel will observe that the judge referred to the evidence at the inquest and at the magisterial inquiry, which, it is suggested, enables a reference to any discrepancies in the evidence of the witnesses on the three occasions—inquest, magisterial inquiry, and trial.
The identity of the half-used bottle, which was found to contain “half a grain of arsenic in solution,” with the bottle which Mrs. Maybrick took into the dressing-room, was not proved. It was assumed alike by the prosecution and the defense, and by Mrs. Maybrick herself, but it was not proved. It was proved that there was another half-used bottle, of which James Maybrick had partaken on Monday, 6th of May, when Dr. Humphreys said:
“Some of the Valentine’s meat juice had been taken, but it did not agree with the deceased and made him vomit. Witness did not remember him vomiting in his presence, but he complained of it. Witness told deceased to stop the Valentine’s meat juice, and said he was not surprised at it making Mr. Maybrick sick, as it made many people sick.”
There was, therefore, another half-used bottle. The attention of counsel is strongly directed to the question of the identity of this half-used bottle.