Notes on Recent Crime
| Date | 01 July 1935 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X3500800302 |
| Published date | 01 July 1935 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Notes on Recent
Crime
"N0
matter what the charge or where the trial, the
principle
that
the prosecution must prove the
guilt of the prisoner is part of the Common Law of England
and no attempt to whittle it down can be entertained."
These immensely important words are those of Sankey L.C.
in the case of a young farm labourer, Reginald Woolmington,
sentenced to death by Swift
J.
for murdering his wife with
ashot-gun and freed by the House of Lords after an
un-
successful appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal. Swift J.
had told the jury,
"If
the
Crown satisfies you
that
this
woman died at the prisoner's hands, then he has to show
that
there are circumstances to be found in the evidence
which has been given from the witness-box in this case
which alleviate the crime, so
that
it is only manslaughter,
or which excused the homicide altogether by showing
that
it was a pure accident."
There
was apparent authority for
this direction going back to the eighteenth century and the
Court of Criminal Appeal had upheld
it;
it meant that
proof of killing by the prisoner threw the onus of proof
that
it
was not murder on him.
The
decision of the House
of Lords is
that
in English criminal law the onus never
shifts to the prisoner, save as to the defence of insanity
and any statutory exception. An illustration can be sought
in the law of receiving stolen
property;
a
jury
may convict,
if recent possession is proved and not explained;
but
it
is a misdirection to say
that
the onus is on the accused
to give an explanation.
The
practical difference in murder
cases is
this:
The
question now will not be
"he
killed
him or her, can he excuse it ?
",
but
will be " did he kill
him or her as the result of a voluntary act, intentional and
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