The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-09 00:00:00

THE JURIDICAL SOCIETY.

Last night the usual bi-monthly meeting of the
members of this society was held at their rooms, St.
Martin's-place, Trafalgar-squre—Mr. Collier, Q.C.,
in the al:Lir—when Mr.Worsley read a paper upon
the proposed alteration in our criminal procedure
for the admission of prisoners as witnesses in their
own defence. The learned gentleman, in opening
his paper, set forth the opinions of the law lords in
the debate which took place on the motion for the
second reading of Lord Brougham's bill for assimi-
lating the criminal to the civil procedure in this re-
spect. He then went on to say that there was no
instance of the questioning of a prisoner to be found
in the history of criminal jurisprudence in this
country, and if the law of England ever sanctioned
it, the disappearance of all trace of it was the
strongest condemnation of the principle of it, and
were it now to be made a rule of law it would be an
aggravation of the French system denounced byLord
Denman as a moral torture. In theory the rule might
be permissive, but in practice it would become com-
pulsory. The proposal that a prisoner should give
his evidence on oath would lead to the commission of
a vast amount of perjury, and the cross-examina-
tion by the prosecuting counsel would be nothing
less than a process for obtaining from the terror, ig-
norance, or want of skill of the accused an admission
of his guilt. The analogy between the accused in a
criminal suit and the defendant in a civil suit was
not a real, but an illusory one, owing to the fact
that the former came from a class of persons in ge.
neral ignorant, immoral, and irreligious; whereas
the latter came from a class of society that was
generally well educated and moral. That being the
case, his argument was this :—ln civil suits there
arose a large amount of perjury from the admission
of defendants to give evidence in their own behalf,
and a forion it was sure to arise from the exami-
nation of prisoners in their own defence, and the
case of the young woman, Rosalie Doise, who was
found guilty of parricide on her own examination

in court, was an instance in point, of the injustice
which was likely to arise to an innocent person
being subjected to examination in court. On the
whole, the gaol bird would, by his perjury, be able
to turn the proposed new law to his benefit, and the
innocent man would, in his timidity, become the
scapegoat of the system, which would, if adopted,
be one of a retrogressive character, and one which
Parliament ought never to sanction, unless the
Crown provided the accused with counsel. The
Chairman, while he joined in the condemnation of
the French system, denied that the proposal of
Lord Brougham in any way resembled it. At
present a defendant in an action for assault or
libel was allowed to tell his own story, but if
for the very same offences he was criminally
prosecuted on an indictment, his mouth was shut
and he could not say a word in his own defence.
It was the innocent whose interests the state ought
to look after, whereas the main argument against
the proposed rule of law was, that it would deprive
the guilty of the chances of escape. The discussion
was continued by Mr. Woollett, Mr. Graye—Q—.o-