Recent Judicial Decisions
| Published date | 01 October 1932 |
| Date | 01 October 1932 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X3200500412 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
RECENT
JUDICIAL
DECISIONS
Provocation-reducing murder to manslaughter.
IN R. e. Millward, reported on page 119 of volume 23, Criminal Appeal
Reports, the prisoner was convicted of murder at the Stafford Assizes.
The
case for the Crown was that the murdered man had been struck on the head
with an axe whilst asleep.
The
principal line of defence was that the prisoner
found his wife in compromising circumstances with the dead man and killed
him as a result.
The
judgment supports the view that mere suspicion of adultery by a
wife is not enough to reduce killing by the husband from murder to man-
slaughter,
but
it also shows that the ancient rigid rule that in such cases the
parties must be discovered actually committing adultery has been modified
and that it is now and has for some time been accepted that if the circum-
stances are such that the husband had reasonably inferred that adultery had
just
taken placeor was about to take place, the provocation would be sufficient
to reduce killing to manslaughter.
In the course of his judgment
Mr.
Justice Avory said nobody could
doubt that if the
jury
had any grounds for believing that the murdered man
was attempting to assault the wife they would have returned a verdict of
,manslaughter.' .
He went on to refer to the summing up, in the course of which the
learned Judge directed the
jury
that if they thought that the conduct which
the wife said took place was really proved, there was sufficient provocation
to reduce the crime to manslaughter if the blows were struck in consequence
of that conduct, and added that that direction obviously meant that even if
the
jury
did not accept the suggestion of the wife that adultery was actually
being committed, yet if they believed that the dead man had assaulted her in
the way she described and the prisoner had found them in that position
they would be justified in reducing the crime to manslaughter.
He went on to deal with a curious rider added by the foreman of the
jury
after a verdict of ' guilty of
murder'
had been returned, and said that
the rider merely showed that the
jury
was sorry for the prisoner.
The
appeal was dismissed.
The
prisoner, who was stronglyrecommended
to mercy, has since been reprieved.
Cross-examination
of
THERE
have been two recent decisions in the Court of Criminal Appeal
Section
IF
of that Act runs as follows:
, A person charged and called as a witness in pursuance of this Act
shall not be asked, and if asked shall not be required to answer, any
question tending to show that he has committed or been convicted of
or been charged with any offence other than that wherewith he is then
599
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