The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-07-22
THE DIFFICULTY OF PROVING
 THE COMMISSION OF MURDERS AT SEA

s THE CASE, of Kanaki held for the suppos
 ed murder of two men, off Pen1eld Reef light in the waters of Long Island Sound, opens the discussion of legal question that has had the consideration ofslawyers and courts for many years.
 Can a man be convicted of murder, or manslatghte1, Nih the absence of the body of the murdered person, and in the absence of any portion of the body which may be iden- tified2
 Lord Hale an English judge, said great many years ago: T would never convict any person of murder or nisnslaughter, unless the fact were proved to be done,sSor at least the body found dead for tlle sake of two cases.'
 These cases Lord Hale proceeded to de- scribe. It is enough to say that they had re- gard to persons who were hung for murders which they were deemed to have committed, and in which the victims were subsequently, found to be alive
 IT is this danger, where there are no req mains to prove by their presence and identifi7 cation that person has been slain, which causes so much attention to proving the corpus deIictf in homicide cases.
 It has almost universally been deemed that to prove the body of the crime it must be shown somebody was killed, and that the kill
 But as to wnetTler there could be such. proof without the actual remains of the slain, there has been difference of view.
 Tn the United States the rule of Lord Hale, QCW8uQ6Q. 160SD Ll6t has been considerably modified, and the tend ency is to admit any proof of the death, that may show it took place.
 Nevertheless New York state has always strictly adhered to the rule set down by Lord Hale.
 Texas has embodied Hale's rule into a statute, which says No person shall be con- victed of homicide unless the body of the de- ceased, or portions of it are found and suffi-. ciently identified to prove the fact of the death of the person charged to have been xilled'
 But the absence of the body of the victim, or of identificable portions of it, does raise grave difficulties, for, there must usually re- main some doubt if the person is really dead Yet, if it were to be required in every case that the body, or portions of it, should be pro- duced, murder on the high seas would certainly be encouraged
 Judge Story, in the United States. in a learned decision pointed out the difficulty of punishing for murders accomplished at sea, in case Hale's view should be received. And StorY's modification of the rule has been gen erallEzadopted in this country. But in one case where an mother had thrown her child over- board. the difficulties attendant upon the phy- sieal absence of the body were such as to com strain Story to say, ethe state has not proved that the child did not die before it's body was thrown from the ship
 Doubtless in most jurisdictions the body of the crime may be proved by the best evidence which is capable of being adduced which is SuIIHc10nI 1Or IHe purpose, DuL the 1dcJ must be proved beyond moral certainty and to the exclusion of every other hypothesis.
 There are very strong grounds in reason why this rule should apply to homicides on the high seas, and to killings in which the body is destroyed by fire, by chemical means
 One judge, in a case not entirely dissimi- lar to that under discussion, differentiated as tosthe need of the presence of the physical body, believing it necessary in crimes committed near.the shores, where there was strong prob ability that the remains would be discovered, and not necessary to proof of homicides com mifted on the high seas where the remains would inevitably be lost.
 Murder will out. Ii is an old saying, and almost true. Nothing is more difficult than to destroy human creature, so that all traces of the crime will disappear.
 If there is no evidence of it anywhere else the truth is known to the slayer, and in null fitllde of eases he himself has been impelled to confess his crime
 All nature fights against the effort to con- ceal murder, and the books are full of cases in which the most trivial incidents have re- vealed the truth and brought the guilty to their doom.