Trial of Deacon Brodie

by Unknown

In the opposite scale, gentlemen, you have the proof of alibi attempted by the prisoner, which is exceedingly defective and inconclusive. Alibi is a defence seldom resorted to but in the most desperate circumstances, and little regard is in general paid to it, for this good reason that it resolves into an immediate falsification of the whole evidence brought in support of the charge. It is suspicious at all times, but it is peculiarly so when the alibi is confined to the same town in which the crime was committed, within a few minutes’ walk of the place, and is deponed to by witnesses at a great distance of time.

The first witness, gentlemen, brought by the prisoner to establish this defence is Matthew Sheriff, his own brother-in-law, by no means an unexceptionable witness. This gentleman depones that he dined with Mr. Brodie on Wednesday, the 5th of March, and that he was in company with him until eight o’clock that night. He is brought forward singly to prove a fact, which, if true, Mr. Brodie could be at no loss to establish by other unexceptionable evidence. There was another gentleman, he tells you, who dined in company with the pannel that day; and what appears to me to be a very odd circumstance, this gentleman is not called as a witness; nay, more, although Mr. Sheriff recollects a great variety of other circumstances, he does not remember this gentleman’s name. Why is this gentleman not brought forward on this occasion? Why are not some of the servants of the house, or any other person, called to support Mr. Sheriff’s testimony? Mr. Sheriff, then, is only a single witness, and from his near connection with the pannel, he gives his evidence under circumstances that are suspicious, and therefore no weight can be allowed to it.

But even supposing Mr, Sheriff’s testimony to be true, it is by no means inconsistent with the guilt of the prisoner, nor affects the credibility of the prosecutor’s evidence. Grahame Campbell depones that Brodie did not come to Smith’s house until about eight o’clock; and allowing him to have remained with Mr. Sheriff until near eight, the expedition against the Excise Office was not then begun; and you will recollect that Brodie was the last who made his appearance at Smith’s, and that he was expected by his associates a considerable time before he arrived.

Jean Watt is the next witness adduced by the prisoner, who, by her own evidence, appears to be a woman of an abandoned character. She has a family to Mr. Brodie, and was denominated by him, in one of his letters, by the appellation of “a devil.” This witness and her maid no doubt concur most minutely in a very extraordinary fact, which, if it can be believed, amounts to a falsification of the whole other evidence, viz., that Mr. Brodie came to Watt’s house just at eight o’clock, as the bell was ringing, and did not leave her house again till nine o’clock next morning. No doubt she swears pointedly to the night, and so does her servant; but although these two witnesses agree in the day, the hour, and even the minute of Mr. Brodie’s coming to Watt’s house on the 5th of March, yet, when they came to be cross-examined, they did not even agree in days; for Jean Watt said that she did not see Brodie from the Thursday morning, at nine o’clock, till the Saturday afternoon following, yet her maid said that he was twice in the house on the Thursday, both in the forenoon and afternoon; though Sheriff said that Brodie was in his house on the Thursday from three o’clock in the afternoon till eleven o’clock at night. They can give no reason for fixing the night of his visit at Watt’s house to be Wednesday night, except the subsequent flight of the prisoner; and therefore it may have been any other night in that week as well as the one condescended upon.

But, gentlemen, I have no occasion to dispute, and indeed, from the evidence of Helen Alison, I am inclined to believe that the prisoner went on the Wednesday night to Mrs. Watt’s house, and slept there that night; but I have heard nothing, allowing all the witnesses to have spoken what they believed to be true, that goes to prove that he went there until after the crime was committed. Gentlemen, the circumstance which fixes the hour in the memory of both Mrs. Watt and her servant is the ringing of a bell, and we all know that there is a bell that rings at ten o’clock as well as at eight. And it is very far from being improbable that they might both mistake the one bell for the other, either at the time, or afterwards, upon endeavouring to recollect the hour at which Brodie came to them.

Allowing, therefore, gentlemen, that all the witnesses adduced by the prisoner are to be believed, there appears to be nothing in their testimony contradictory to the evidence of the prisoner’s accession to the crime charged; and therefore I can have no doubt that, although the matter rested upon the evidence I have already stated, you could have no hesitation in pronouncing both the prisoners guilty.

But, gentlemen, when, in addition to that evidence, you take into your consideration the testimony of Ainslie and Brown, the two associates of the pannels, if any doubt did remain, it would necessarily be removed. The counsel for the prisoners, aware of this, have objected to the admissibility of both of them.

I admit that the credibility of these witnesses is liable to suspicion, and that if the proof rested upon their evidence alone, I would not call upon you to find the prisoners guilty upon it, but in so far as their evidence is corroborated by the general tenor of the other unexceptionable parts of the proof they are entitled to credit.

To Ainslie it has been objected that a corrupt bargain was made with him by the Sheriff, which, in other words, amounts to this, that he must be a false witness. If the prisoners’ counsel were serious in stating this objection, they ought certainly to have proved it; but, gentlemen, it proceeded entirely upon a mistake in point of fact—upon a supposition that Ainslie had not spoke out until Brodie was apprehended. Gentlemen, I hold Ainslie’s declaration in my hand, and which I offered to read, and which I would now read, if the forms of the Court would allow me, emitted a short while after the robbery was committed, and containing a full and complete disclosure of the whole transaction. But, gentlemen, you will not, you cannot, suspect that there was any such bargain; that there was anything in the present case out of the common course.

A similar objection was made by the counsel for the prisoner to the evidence of Brown, with this addition, that he had been convicted of felony at the Old Bailey. The last part of this objection, gentlemen, is completely answered by the pardon which, by the law of England, where that sentence was pronounced, completely rehabilitated him. Brown is then in even a more favourable situation than Ainslie, for, as he never was charged with the crime for which the prisoners are tried, nor any intention taken up to prosecute him for it, he had even less temptation than Ainslie to swear falsely.