HON. JOSEPH H. CHOATE,
American Ambassador at the Court of St. James, 1899—
Mr. Justice Stephen, in short, instead of putting to the jury for separate answers each of the following three questions:
1. Did this man die of arsenic?
2. Did Mrs. Maybrick administer that arsenic?
3. Did she do it feloniously?
invited them to return a verdict of “guilty” or “not guilty” upon a direction of law, wherein he told them that they were to decide it as an intellectual problem, on the question which, it is submitted, can be formulated thus:
“Might this man have died of arsenic notwithstanding the opinion of the medical experts that he did not die of arsenic?” And the jury answered “Yes.”
It is submitted that this was a gross misdirection.
It may be interesting and applicable to quote from a paper read by Sir Fitzjames Stephen himself at the Science Association in 1884: “It is not to be denied that, so long as great ignorance exists on matters of physical and medical science in all classes, physicians will occasionally have to submit to the mortification of seeing not only the jury, but the bar and bench itself, receive with scornful incredulity or with self-satisfied ignorance evidence which ought to be received with respect and attention.” How prophetic this was as exemplified by his own attitude in this trial need not be pointed out.