JUSTICE AT TRIALS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 98, 28 April 1930, Page 6

JUSTICE AT TRIALS

CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE. i GENERAL VALIDITY CLAIMED. The view that it was only by th 6 method of circumstantial evidence that trials as conducted in English-speaking countries could be carried on, was expressed by Air H. F. Johnston, K.C., of Wellington, in an address to delegates at tho annual conference of the New Zealand Law Society. Like most things, he said, it had to be used in moderation. “Circumstantial evidence in criminal trials which arouse public interest is often sufficient in public estimation to hang a man before he is convicted, and, after he is hanged, sufficiently inconclusive to raise in the public mind a doubt as to the justice of the verdict,” Mr Johnston said. “In an age where the general absorption of detective novels and the subjection of all classes to mystery and trial films produce a type of mind too ingenious in chain building to be left to its own devices unchallenged, it is as well that lawyers should furnish themselves with an answer to criticism against circumstantial evidence. “At present the English Law Journal is conductinng such an inquiry into the evidence, in the Podmore trial. To whatever weakness in the evidence, direct or circumstantial, any attack is directed, we may be sure that tho charge will not be against the general validity of circumstantial evidence.” A general demand for more direct evidence, Air Johnson said, would mean a swing to tho Continental system as opposed to the English, with attempts at intimidation to extort actual confessions. A distinguished French jurist had said: “In Fra: ?o, unless a criminal commits a crime in a public square or makes a confession, he need not fear conviction." This was really the alternative to the circumstantial method. Circumstantial evidence, generally speaking, yielded proof as satisfactory as direct. However, it was necessary to provide an antidote to the public tendency to be over ingenious in building up a structure of circumstantial evidence. Everyone was prepared to do a crossword puzjle or find the murderer. Circumstantial evidence to be conclusive had to be consistent only with the principal fact.

Air Johnson quoted remarks made on one occasion by Air Baron Alderson in a trial where the evidence was almost entirely circumstantial. The judge said it was necessary to warn the jury against the danger of being misled by a train of circumstantial evidence. The mind was apt to take a pleasure in adapting circumstances to one another and even straining them a little to force them to form parts of one connected whole. Tho more ingenious tho mind of an individual, the more likely HnITV *°v 8U ? ply 80me Braall “issing link, to take for granted some fact consistent with previous theories, in order to make the chain complete. So long as there was an efficient safeguard against this tendency, the circumstantial method would always be JuUT va ’ U 0 iu “ rvin e the