The Penny Bee-Hive. — 1870-05-07 (London, England)

REVISION OF SENTENCES IN "A PRIVATE ROOM."  The wretched case of SPltas has given rise to a "capital punishment " conversation in the House of Commons. Though Mr. BARON CIiANNEL, who tried him, entirely concurred in the verdict, Mr. BRUCE has not concurred in the sentence; so the wo m an:slayer escapes s the gallows, and goes to prison avowedly for life. This, said Sir GmRGE JENKINSON, i the doing of "one man sitting in a private room." The Baronet, however, admitted that the  SECRETARY of STATE acted upon evidence not submitted at the trial. Why? liirst, says Mr. BRUCE, Judges and Juries differ, and somebody must be umpire between them. Secondly, the prerogative of mercy must be lodged somewhere. Let somebody else than the 110315 SECRETARY advise in it, and he, for one, should be immensely relieved. Meanwhile, the Minister holding his position often acted on grounds unknown to the public, who, moreover, relied too much on newspapers, and took insufficient pains to get at the real facts. But then, why are not the grounds made known, or how can the public ascertain that which is red-tapishly hidden from them? As to interfering betwixt judge and jury, in overruling both, did any man, asked the Minister, suppose this was ever done without close communication with the Judge ? For his own part, he had never departed from a sentence without the fullest approval of the Judge who had pronounced it, but sometimes at the Judge's own spontaneous request. In the case of SPINAs he was " besieged with petit tions." The reasons on which they were founded appeared to him "substantial." The Judge, however, saw no reason for disturbing the verdict, or, consequently, the sentence. On that judgment, Mr. BRUCE would have acted; but, afterwards, he received "evidence of the .most important character." In the army abroad, and in hospital, the convict had been found subject to "mental hallucinations." Therefore he spared the man's life, and commuted the sentence ; but has he sent him to Bedlam? Mr. Bnuec named other cases in which, for want of counsel to fish out the facts for the defence, Juries had convicted of murder where the offence had not been more than manslaughter. What, then, is the practical sum of all this? Since Judges and Juries disagree, since Judges sometimes rue on consideration their own sentences, since trials sometimes, perhaps often, proceed from indictment to conviction, sentence, and even execution, in the absence of a full knowledge of the real facts, since, as in the case of SpINA.s, after conviction and sentence, the SECRETARY Of STATE, in conference with the Judge, and after consideration of evidence submitted to both subsequently to the trial, comes to the first opinion of Judge and Jury, and yet, when the Judge has gone away, may receive still further evidence so strong as to convince him that the man tried and cone victed of wilful murder and sentenced to die for it, was a man not responsible for his own acts,—since these particular facts are but an example of what is coming out again and again, is it not high time that CALCRAFT was dismissed, the gallows taken down, and some punishment substituted, even in cases of murder, which, on the discovery of unjust conviction, would not make the injustice done utterly and for ever irreparable? Nay; as Mr. GILPIN truly observed, men have been executed, who were afterwards found to have been absolutely innocent; while, on the other hand, as was no less truly remarked by another Member, many actual murderers escape, from the reluctance of Juries to send men red. handed out of the world. The time seems come when there must be neither revision of sentences in a "private room," nor executions either public or private.