Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T22:05:20.476Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Dishonesty and the Jury: A Case Study in the Moral Content of Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2010

Richard Tur
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It must be considered that a man who only does what everyone of the society to which he belongs would do is not a dishonest man.

A lack of confidence in the ability of a tribunal correctly to estimate evidence of states of mind and the like can never be sufficient ground for excluding from enquiry the most fundamental element in a rational and humane criminal code.

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 18: Philosophy and Practice , September 1984 , pp. 75 - 96
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 1984

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Boswell's Life of Johnson Oxford Edition (London, 1904) Vol. 1, 456.

2 Per Dixon J., Thomas (1937) 59 C.L.R. Z79, 309.

3 J. C. Smith, The Law of Theft, 4th edn (London, 1979) para. 2 (hereinafter Theft).

4 Eighth Report of the Criminal Law Revision Committee, Cmnd 2977, ‘Theft and Related Offences’, para. 39.

5 ‘The Undefined Adverb in Criminal Statutes’ [1966] Crim.L.R. 548, 552.

6 Williams and Wife [1953] 1 Q.B. 660.

7 Banyard [1958] Crim.L.R. 419.

8 Cited in Mary P. Mack Jeremy Bentham: An Odyssey of Ideas, 1748–1792 (London, 1962), 59.

9 Box 35, p. 6, cited Mack, Jeremy Bentham, 422.

10 Feely [1973] Q.B. 530; Ghosh [1982] Q.B. 1053.

11 ‘Dishonesty in Theft; A Dispensable Concept’ [1982] Crim.L.R. 395.Google Scholar

12 Williams, Glanville, Textbook of Criminal Law, 2nd edn (London, 1983) 726 (hereinafter G.W.).Google Scholar

13 Dishonesty and the Jury (Leicester, 1974), 7.Google Scholar

14 Op. cit. 20.

15 Op. cit. 18.

16 Op. cit. 24.

17 [1977] 2 All E.R. 909, 940–941.

18 SirMark, Robert, ‘Minority Verdict’, in Mark, Policing a Perplexed Society (London, 1977), 53–73.Google Scholar Zander, Michael, ‘Why I Disagree with Sir Robert Mark’, Police (04 1974), 16.Google Scholar

19 [1982] Crim.L.R. 395, 404.

20 973] Q.B. 530, 541.

21 [1973] Q.B. 530, 536–537.

22 [1973] Q.B. 530, 537–538.

23 [1973] Q.B. 530, 539.

24 [1973] Q.B. 530, 541.

25 G.W., 725.

26 [1982] Crim.L.R. 395, 399.

27 Moore v Hussey 1609 Hob. 93, 96.Google Scholar

28 [19821 Crim.L.R. 395, 410.

29 Simpson, A. W. B., ‘The Common Law and Legal Theory’, in Oxford Essays in Jurisprudence, Second Series, Simpson, (ed.) (Oxford 1973), 76–99Google Scholar; Dworkin, Ronald M., ‘The Model of Rules’, University of Chicago Law Review 14, (1967), 35.Google Scholar

30 (1974) 90 L.Q.R. 102, 125.

31 Hart, H. L. A., The Concept of Law (Oxford, 1961), 125 (hereinafter Concept).Google Scholar

32 Unger, R. M., Law in Modern Society (New York, 1976), 196.Google Scholar

33 ‘Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals’, Harvard Law Review 71 (1957–1958), 593, 629.Google Scholar

34 Hart, , Concept, 136.Google Scholar

35 Dworkin, , University of Chicago Law Review 14 (1967), 26.Google Scholar

36 (1974) 90 L.Q.R. 102, 123.

37 [1981] Crim.L.R. 281.

38 G.W., 726.

39 [1982] Crim.L.R. 395, 399.

40 Mill, , Utilitarianism (London, 1863) Ch. IV.Google Scholar

41 Hall, Everett W., ‘The “Proof” of Utility in Bentham and Mill’, Ethics 60 (1949)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see, too, Glover, , ‘Moral Disagreements’, in Causing Death and Saving Lives (Harmondsworth, 1977), 23–26.Google Scholar

42 Mack, Jeremy Bentham, 4Google Scholar; Works, Bowring, (ed) (London, 1838), XI, 33.Google Scholar

43 Smith, , TheftGoogle Scholar, para. 116.

44 Trial by Jury, revised edn (London, 1966), 157.Google Scholar

45 [1981] Crim.L.R. 393.

46 Elliott, , [1982]Google Scholar Crim.L.R. 395, 395.

47 Feely [1973] Q.B. 530, 538.Google Scholar

48 Smith, and Hogan, , Criminal Law, 5th edn (London, 1983), 491Google Scholar: Theft, para. 116.

49 Works, Bowring (ed.), V, 235.Google Scholar

50 Works, Bowring (ed.), VII, 309.Google Scholar

51 Devlin, Lord, Trial by Jury, 160.Google Scholar

52 Boswell's Life of Johnson, Vol. I, 456.Google Scholar

53 Holdsworth, , A History of English Law, 7th edn (London, 1956), Vol. 1, 349.Google Scholar

54 [1982] Crim. L. R. 395, 399; Gilks [1972] 3 All E. R. 280, 283.

55 [1982] Crim.L.R. 395, 406.

56 [1982] Crim.L.R. 395, 410.

57 Smith, , TheftGoogle Scholar, para. 117.

58 G.W., 726.

59 G.W., 730.

60 G.W., 730.

61 Works, Bowring (ed.), X, 73Google Scholar; ‘The people is my Caesar. I appeal from the present Caesar to Caesar better informed.’

62 Holdsworth, , op. cit., Vol. 1, 349.Google Scholar

63 [1982] Crim. L.R. 395, 398.

64 [1982] Crim. L.R. 395, 395.

65 The notion of honest deception raises parallel difficulties to an honest lie, see G.W., 729; or honest graft, see Ward, David, ‘The Ethnic Ghetto in the United States; Past and Present’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers (New Series) 7 (1982), 262CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Riordan, (ed.), Plunkitt of Tammany Hall (New York, 1963).Google Scholar

66 [1980] V.R. 401.

67 Smith, , TheftGoogle Scholar, para. 182.

68 Ibid.

69 1 P.L. 500.

70 Tolson (1889) 23 Q.B.D. 168, 185; 181.Google Scholar

71 [1983] 2 W.L.R. 539.

72 Smith, , Theft, para. 181; cf. 5th edn (London, 1984), paras 122–124.Google ScholarPubMed

73 Thomas, , The Institutes of Justinian (Oxford, 1975), 265.Google Scholar

74 See Wells, , [1982] Crim. L.R. 209. 210.Google Scholar

75 Cross, , (1975) 91Google Scholar L.Q.R. 540, 541.

76 G.W., 727.

77 [1981] 1 All E. R. 961, 965.

78 [1981] 1 All E.R. 961, 967.

79 [1972] 3 All E. R. 280.

80 [1978] 1 W. L. R. 873.

81 [1982] Q.B. 1053, especially 1064. The facts of the case were that a surgeon obtained fees from the NHS by falsely representing that he had performed an operation. He claimed that the money obtained was the balance of fees already owed to him.

82 Prince (1875) L.R. 2 C.C.R., 154, 157Google Scholar, per Brett J., ‘The first point therefore to be considered would seem to be what would have been the legal position of the prisoner if the facts had been as he believed them to be… ?’

83 Morgan [1976] A.C. 176; David Raymond Smith [1974] Q.B. 354Google Scholar; see Smith, and Hogan, , Criminal Law, 5th edn, 188–190.Google Scholar

84 [1976] 1 All E.R. 1.

85 Ghosh [1982]Google Scholar Q.B. 1053, 1057, citing Greenstein [1975]Google Scholar 1 W.L.R. 1353, 1359.

86 Per Dickson, J., Pappajohn (1980) 111 D.L.R. 1, 20.Google Scholar

87 ‘Against Moral Disestablishment’, in MacCormick, , Legal Right and Social Democracy (Oxford, 1982), 18–38, at p. 30.Google Scholar

88 Ibid.

89 Op. cit., 32.

90 Op. cit., 33.

91 Op. cit., 34.

92 Canadian Law Reform Commission Working Paper 19 (1977).

93 Morris, Per Lord, Knuller v D.P.P.Google Scholar [1972] 2 All E.R. 898, 910.

94 Per Holmes, J., Southern Pacific Co. v Jensen (1917) 244 U.S. 205, 222.Google Scholar

95 Kelsen, , Pure Theory of Law (Berkely and Los Angeles, 1967), 65.Google Scholar

96 Smith, , TheftGoogle Scholar, para. 117.

97 Grey [1982] Crim.L.R. 176.

98 Tan [1983] 2 All E.R. 12.

99 Cooper, , ‘Two Concepts of Morality’, Philosophy (1966), 19–33Google Scholar; Strawson, , ‘Social Morality and Individual Ideal’, Philosophy (1961), 1–17Google Scholar; see, too, Urmson, , ‘Saints and Heroes’, in Essays in Moral PhilosophyGoogle Scholar, Melden, (ed.) (Washington, 1958), 198–216.Google Scholar