CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 September 1931, Page 2

CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE

ENGLISH CONTROVERSY In recent murder trials the reaction of the juries to “circumstantial evL dence” has given rise to controversy .which is still being pursued with unabated vigour and no little acrimony (says a writer in the “Daily Mail”).

A learned and ■ authoritative opinion of the value and significance of circumstantial evidence in criminal trials is to be found in a book by Mr. Christmas Humphries, with a preface by Sir Archibald Bodkin, who until recently was Director of Public Prosecutions, and is recognised as one of the foremost authorities on criminal law in Britain. Sir Archibald says: —

“Now and again, when some criminal case is being discussed by laymen, one hears the remark, ‘But the evidence is only circumstantial; no one saw the crime committed.’ And similar submissions are to be found in the arguments of counsel in the Court of Criminal Appeal.

“The underlying suggestion is that circumstantial evidence is not so satisfactory a means of proof as direct evidence of the crime and its implication of the accused.

“But if this type of proof be not acceptable many murders of the foulest and most deliberate kind would go unpunished, for it is in premeditated crimes that most care is taken by the criminal to ensure secrecy, and it is often in this class of murder that circumstantial evidence can alone be obtained."

Sir Archibald quotes the following sattement by the present Lord Chief Justice in a murder appeal: —

“It has been said that the evidence aginst the appellant is circumstantial: so it is, but circumstantial evidence is often the best. It is evidence of surrounding circumstances which, by undesigned coincidence, is capable of proving a proposition with the accuracy of mathematics. It is no derogation of evidence to say that it is circumstantial.” In the course of his remarks Sir Archibald Bodkin calls attention to the case of Podmore, the Southampton murderer, as one which not only demonstrates the convincing character of circumstantial evidence, “but of the assistance to public justice derived from the scientific skill of the pathologist, and the technique of the photographer.” POLICE AND PEOPLE Finally, Sir Archibald makes this very important statement with regard to the methods of the police in obtaining information: — “No one with any practical experience of the difficulties with which the police are faced when a serious crime has been committed will desire that they , should be restricted in the discharge of theij duty to bring the offender to justice by any new rules and regulations.

“But let it be remembered that it is quite as much the duty of each of His Majesty’s subjects to assist the police by disclosing to them information as to a crime, as it is the duty of the police to make every endeavour to bring the offender to justice.” Mr. Christmas Humphreys, the son of Mr. Justice Travers Humphreys and himself a barrister, discusses at length what is meant by, and the true import of, circumstantial ’evidence. He remarks: — “In favour of circumstantial evidence it may be pointed out that proof is only excessive probability, so forceful as to eliminate all doubt and produce conviction,»and that such conviction, being based upon reason, is more amenable to the cumulative effect of numerous items between them ousting coincidence than the testimony of the senses of any one man, however apparently sound.” He gives the following headings as (hose under which the various factors of circumstantial evidence are analysed. “Motive: Acts indicative of guilty consciousness or intent; Preparation for the crime; opportunity for committing it; Recent possession of fruits of the crime; Refusal to account for suspicious circumstances, or unsatisfactory explanations; Indirect admissions of guilt; Tampering with or fabrication of evidence; Certain statutory presumptions; Scientific testimony.” Dealing with the individual evidence under each of these heads, Mr. Humphreys lays down the fact that “proof of motive is never necessary in the proof of the crime. Absence of any discoverable motive is of little consequence in deciding whether or not the prisoner committed the crime, for the most brilliant jury is helpless in deciding the mental processes . which actuate the criminal.”

He emphasises the importance of the evidence that an accused person procured or was in possession of an instrument with which the crime might have been committed, and points out the double-edged effect of an alibi, remarking, ’“Nothing is stronger if It succeeds; nothing is more deadly to the accused man when it fails.”

As to indirect admissions of guilt, he deals with the actions of the accused, which “may speak more clearly than any words. Flight, for example, is a factor seldom compatible with innocence, for if a man be innocent, why should he fear his trial?”