Trial of William Palmer

by Unknown

WILLIAM PALMER.

INTRODUCTION.

Sir James Stephen, in his “History of the Criminal Law,” observes that he was present at the trial of William Palmer, and that it made an impression on him which the subsequent experience of thirty-four years had only confirmed and strengthened. He considers that the trial, as a whole, was one of the greatest trials in the history of English law, and eminently deserving the attention of students of the law, and we may add of students of human nature.

Palmer was convicted, but there has always been a certain amount of doubt and mystery about the trial. We can hardly imagine a reader not being satisfied morally as to the guilt of Palmer, but were he to take the medical and chemical evidence alone, which forms so large a part of the following report, we could at least imagine him holding his judgment in suspense. He might well believe that Palmer administered poison to Cook, whom he was charged with murdering, without admitting that the poison was strychnia. And there remains the ambiguous language of Palmer himself, who neither positively admitted nor denied his guilt, but declared, “I am innocent of poisoning Cook by strychnia.” Sir James Stephen, who will not allow that the defence was impressive, is yet struck with this defect in the evidence, and suggests that Palmer may have discovered a method of administering strychnia so as to disguise its normal effects. If this is so, his secret has never been disclosed. Perhaps it is equally probable that he selected some poison allied to strychnia—bruchsia, for example—and that the medical and chemical experts of sixty years ago were not sufficiently acquainted with the strychnoid poisons to trace all their differences. The evidence of the chemical witnesses suggests something of this kind, so inconsistent were their opinions; and this remark applies even more strongly to the evidence of the doctors as to the difference between the disease of tetanus and the effects of strychnia. This is one of the great subjects of interest in the report of the trial. A constant and alert attention is needed in reading it, and it is a professional discipline for either lawyer or doctor.

Our personal opinion is that, had it not been for one or two definitely known cases of strychnia poisoning in the human subject, the prosecution would have failed, in spite of all the experiments on animals from which analogies as to Cook’s symptoms were attempted to be drawn. There had been no trial for poisoning by strychnia before Palmer’s. But it happened that while the Palmer case was pending Dr. Dove, of Leeds, was accused of poisoning his wife by strychnia, and the symptoms of poison were more certainly ascertained. Yet Dr. Nunneley, of Leeds, who made a report on this case, was called for the defence, not for the prosecution.

In this preliminary sketch I shall not attempt to convey any idea of the chemical and medical evidence by a formal summary. It would be impossible, as Sir James Stephen remarks, to treat satisfactorily such an extensive, so technical, and so contradictory a body of testimony, and only such a general statement will be made of the circumstances as will enable the reader the easier to follow the case of the prosecution.

In the English procedure counsel’s speech for the prosecution begins the proceedings. In the Scottish the evidence is led at once. The trial is treated in this respect as if it were a Scottish trial on account of its extreme bulk, as it extended over twelve days. Neither in the Scottish series, which are already published, nor in the English series, now beginning, is there a trial of equal length; nor do I know any other murder trial so long, with the exception of that conducted by Browning in “The Ring and the Book.” In this trial, as in every English trial, the opening speech was intended to inform the jury merely of the facts and prepare their minds for the evidence, and lucidity of statement, at the most, is the only forensic effect aimed at. I accordingly omit the Attorney-General’s speech qua speech, and found this preliminary statement on it. The point of interest as regards forensic oratory is reached with the speech of Serjeant Shee, the leading counsel for the defence. He analyses the evidence led for the prosecution, challenges its cogency, outlines the case in reply which will be an answer to every point made, appeals eloquently and pathetically for the prisoner, and, we may add incidentally, asserts his absolute belief in his client’s innocence, thus bringing on himself the presiding judge’s reproof for transgression of the rules of advocacy. The culmination is attained in the reply of the Attorney-General. Nothing, unless it is of the most temporary interest, is omitted in these two speeches, and every reference and argument in them will be intelligible in the light of the examinations and cross-examinations as given, which, not less than the speeches, are classic examples of the forensic art.

There is a tradition that Palmer, a racing man, expressed his sense of the deadly effect of Sir Alexander Cockburn’s examination, cross-examination, and speech in racecourse language, “It was the riding that did it.”