The Sun.
London, England, 1862-06-26 00:00:00

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A2JoNS IN IRRIZIENDii

THE ACQUITTAL OF HALLORAN.
(From the _Dublin Freeman)
Halloran has been acquitted, and thus another
illustration has been given of the noble system of
jurisprudence we have the happiness to enjoy,
under which men are not afraid to extend impar-
tial justice to the accused whether the evidence
proves them innocent or guilty. The time was
when to be accused of an agrarian crime was to. he
condemned, and when a Special Commission was
popularly known as " the hanging assize." The
Crown, more anxious to display the power of the
executive than to secure justice, more desirous to
strike terror than to inspire confidence in the ad-
ministration of the law, was wont in former times
to appeal to the passions of jurors rather than to
their reason, and the result was that under the coer-
cive influence which such harangues exercised, and
the bodily terror which they excited, jurors felt
that life and Property would not be secure if they
allowed doubt or hesitancy as to the completeness
of the evidence to interpose between the accused
and the gallows. A more humane and more just
system prevails in this our day. The Crown, re-
presented by our present popular Viceroy, aims at
justice, not terrorism ; and the Attorney -Gene-
ral of our day does not seek to stimulate the
vengeful passions of the juror class by
appeals to their passion or their feelings,
or by elaborate disquisitions on the consequences
that must follow if victims be not offered up to the
cravings of offended law. The judges, too, are now
rather the advocates of the accused than the public
prosecutors, whose conduct on the bench was wont
to outrage decency and disgrace justice in the days
of our fathers. Never was there a more striking in-
stance of this healthful charge than we have had in
the results of the Special Commission now sitting
for the counties of Limerick and Tipperary. Four
trials have taken place. The same judges presided
—the same prosecutors acted for the Crown—the
same class—the gentry class—supplied the jurors,
and the result has been two convictions and two
acquittals. All of these verdicts public opinion
approves. The guilt of the concicted was as apparent
to all who read the evidence as it was to those who
prepared the indictments, and wo may say with
equal confidence that there is not one who carefully
studied the evidence in the other cases who does not
feel that were he himself in the jury-box he would
not have hesitated to being in a verdict of acquit.
tal. Some of our contemporaries have adopted a
grumbling tone because there were not more con-
victions. It would be as unconstitutional es it
would be unjust and illegal to say broadly that the
verdict of acquittal should have been a verdict of
guilty, and therefore there was no open assertion that
the verdicts were incorrect. But the discontent
at the verdict in Bohan's case was not concealed
by those who imagine that there is more of security
for life and property to be obtained from the ter- •
rorised feelings of the peasantry than from the-
well-grounded and wide-spread confidence in the -
majesty and in the justice of law which a fair trial
and an honest verdict cannot fail to impart. Mr.
Macdonogh, the able counsel for the acquitted pri-
soner, stated that it was no part of his client's de-
fence to impeach the evidence of Colonel Knox in
the case of Bohan, further than to impute error as
to identity. The Grand Jury believed Colonel
Knox was in error as to the identity of one brother,
and the jurors who tried the man against whom
bills were found, and who were all of the grand
juror and magisterial class—many of the jurors
being both—unhesitatingly acquitted the accused
on the clear and conclusive evidence of the many
witnesses who proved—to use the words of Baron
Deasy—that he could not be, and, therefore, was
not guilty. We have not yet had an opportunity
of analysing the evidence offered in defence of Hal-
loran, the news of whose acquittal reached by tele-
graph last night The evidence against him was
at most only circumstantial; but it was weakly
circumstantial, and the manner of the witness utterly
failed to inspire confidence in his own conviction of
the accuracy of the details to which he swore. There
appears, from the length of time during which the
jury deliberated, to have been some doubt as to the
side to which the weight of evidence leaned; but
the very existence of a doubt entitled the prisoner
to an acquittal, and that he has received at the
hands of twelve gentlemen of the gentry class—
twelve Tipperary landlords—who would have just
as little difficulty in finding a verdict of guilty if
they thought the evidence warranted it. Some
remarks of a harsh nature, reflecting on the charac-
ter of the Irish peasantry, have been made of the
fact that " cheers" greeted the verdict which pro-
nounced Bohan innocent. Have cheers never
greeted a verdict in Westminster Hall f Are the
English public so insensible to justice and so cal-
lous to its due and impartial administration amongst
themselves that they never indicate the popular
endorsement of a verdict by a popular ovation ?
The verdict in Tipperary was the verdict of the
gentry of the county, and the cheer was the en-
dorsement by the public of that verdict. Had an
ordinary petty jury acquitted the accused, prejudice
and party might allege that sympathy with crime
had reached the jury box, and exhibited itself in
the vex diet. But no such imputation can be made in
these cases. On Bohan's jury there were none but
members of the grand jury class; there were on it
men who acted as magistrates fearlessly and with
vigour, and who would do so again either as magis-
trates or as jurors if the occasion required it, or if
the evidence demanded it. These men could have
no sympathy with crime, and know not what terror
means. If the evidence justified it, they Would
have no squeamish sentimentality, no whining fear
to impede stern justice; and we are proud to record
the fact—a fact full of bright promise for our future
—that a special jury of Tipperary landlords had
the moral courage to bring in two verdicts of
acquittal in favour of men accused of agrarian
crimes, and tried at a Special Commission. Such
a fact indicates a self-reliant feeling in the gentry
that places them above suspicion, and cannot fail to
inspire the people withrespect for the law, and a
conviction that justice will henceforth have free
course in Ireland. Let us hope that now that there
has been "no parleying •
a Special
_ (.;om with assassins"—now that
Commission has sat and judged—those
who are our law makers will try to discover and
remove the causes which have led to the fearful
crimes which necessitated the issue of this Commis-
sion, and the perpetrators of which have not yet
been brought to justice.