Medico-Legal Aspects of Neill's Case

Extract

The case of Neill, the Lambeth poisoner, recently sentenced to death and executed for a diabolical murder, raised several points of medico-legal interest. (1.) The highly technical character of the chemical evidence which Mr. Justice Hawkins and the jury ex necessitate rei accepted from Dr. Stevenson without being able, as the learned judge very frankly admitted, to follow the elaborate tests by which that distinguished expert arrived at his conclusions, has once more brought to the public notice the position of scientific witnesses in the Courts of Law. Dr. Cook, of Bristol, in a notable letter to the “Law Times,” has suggested a new solution of the vexed and inveterate problem, How should scientific facts be established in juridical proceedings ? Let the tribunals, says Dr. Cook in effect, recognize their own incapacity and a fortiori that of jurymen to understand scientific processes, and let a commission of experts be appointed to inquire into and report upon issues referred to it by the judge presiding over the trial of any complicated medico-legal case. This commission would consist of, say, three members. It would have power to call before it the expert witnesses for the prosecution, and, if there were any, for the defence; to examine and cross-examine them; to hear counsel on the matters in dispute, and possibly to see the crucial tests performed before preparing and presenting its report. This scheme, which is partly borrowed from the continental system of preliminary reports, seems to us, however, to lie open to two objections. In the first place it would involve expense. The members of the scientific commission, unlike the arbitrators of a tribunal de commerce in France or Belgium, would have no career before them as the goal of their labours, and could not be expected to act gratuitously. Dr. Cook estimates that an annual sum of £2,000 would cover the working expenses of his proposal, and the British taxpayer could no doubt be induced to make this sacrifice if he were convinced that it contributed to the interests of justice. But a more serious objection remains behind. Suppose that the commission differed in opinion, could the judge safely advise the jury in a case of life and death to act upon the report of a bare majority? Would the jury take such advice even if it were given, and in every such case would not the tribunal be thrown back upon that very weighing of scientific testimony and balancing of scientific authority which it is Dr. Cook's great object to avoid ? We venture to think that there is a more excellent way. The law has given many hostages to the principle ubique in qua arte credendum. The Admiralty Division hardly ever disposes of a difficult question of shipping law without the aid of the elder brethren of Trinity House as nautical assessors. Every court, from the highest to the lowest, that possesses jurisdiction in patent cases has power to summon expert assistance. In the High Court of Justice itself judicial references are scarcely less common than public trials, and under the Rules of Court the judges are enabled to call in scientific experts in every cause other than a criminal prosecution by the Crown. If this power were simply made universal the end in view would be attained without expensive or elaborate machinery. The task of advising would belong to the assessor; the responsibility of deciding would rest, as at present, with the judge and the jury. (2.) On the trial itself we do not propose to dwell. The prosecution was conducted by the Attorney-General, Sir Charles Russell, with great ability, and in the main with exemplary moderation. The defence was all that could be expected under the circumstances, but the learned counsel for the prisoner—Mr. Geoghegan—like Serjeant Shee in defending Palmer, was, metaphorically speaking, placed in a cleft-stick. He had both to impeach and to uphold the scientific accuracy of the expert of the prosecution. The symptoms of Matilda Clover's death, said the learned gentleman in substance, may not have been due to strychnine poisoning, for Dr. Stevenson is fallible, and his tests may have yielded wrong results. But Ellen Donworth's death (with which Neill was not charged) must have been caused by strychnine, for Dr. Stevenson found it in her body, and Dr. Stevenson could not have been mistaken. A short interval of time, of course, elapsed between the use of these mutually destructive arguments which Mr. Geoghegan was compelled by the weakness of his case, and, indeed, by the very logic of his position, to employ. But their glaring inconsistency did not escape the eyes of the jury, and must have told heavily against the prisoner's chances of acquittal. There can be no doubt that Neill was properly convicted. No direct evidence of administration, indeed, was forthcoming, and the evidence of identity was so weak that we can readily understand the anxiety with which the counsel for the Crown are said to have watched the progress of the case. But the circumstantial evidence was strong enough to justify the verdict of guilty which the jury unhesitatingly returned. The alleged inadequacy of Neill's motive need not greatly concern us. To a well-regulated mind no such thing as an adequate motive for the commission of a crime can possibly exist, but on the unstable mental equilibrium of persons like Neill, the slightest and most obscure motive may operate with even more power. The old story told by Count Cenci to Cardinal Camillo throws some light on such judicial enigmas: