By contrast, Mr Justice Cresswell Cresswell, who had been educated, like Mr Baron Alderson, at the Charterhouse and Cambridge, comported himself with dignity and strict impartiality. It was clear that, but for his intervention at many important points, the Lord Chief Justice would have admitted illegal evidence against Dr Palmer, or excluded evidence operating in his favour. When, on one occasion, Mr Justice Cresswell respectfully addressed Serjeant Shee as 'Brother Shee', Mr Baron Alderson's impatient ejaculation: 'O, bother Shee!' was heard by everyone present.
The Lord Chief Justice first showed his prejudice by allowing the Attorney-General to acquaint the jury with the story of Bate's life insurance, while omitting circumstances which Samuel Cheshire, or Jeremiah Smith, or Dr Palmer himself-who, by a quirk of British legal procedure, must keep silent throughout the trial, whatever falsehoods might be told-could have supplied in extenuation. Dr Palmer, let it be observed, had never been granted the privilege of stating his case from any witness box, or before any public authorities whatsoever. Serjeant Shee strongly objected to this evidence about the insurance as irrelevant, and it was excluded, but too late for the true facts to appear. Thus the black impression remained fixed in the minds of the jurymen: 'Dr Palmer attempted to take George Bate's life; as he had already taken those of his own wife and, perhaps, his brother.'
Again, it is a first principle of our Law that nothing which has been said while a prisoner was absent may be quoted in evidence against him. Yet the Lord Chief Justice allowed the Prosecution to prove a talk between Mr Cook and Fisher, held in Dr Palmer's absence when the latter had no means of contradicting Cook's drunken suspicions of the brandy. It seems that Mr Justice Cresswell noted the impropriety, because he later interposed at this point in the Lord Chief Justice's summing up and prevented him from reading to the jury evidence which should never have been given. Yet the passage had produced a decisive influence on their minds, and blinded them to the fact that Cook later went to Rugeley with Dr Palmer, dined at his house, constantly sent for him, made no mention of any 'dosing' to Dr Jones, his closest friend and his physician, and kept an affectionate faith in Dr Palmer until death carried him off.
Serjeant Shee objected time after time to Mr James's illegal questions, but the Lord Chief Justice over-ruled him so constantly that at last he told Mr John Smith, Dr Palmer's solicitor: 'I dare not object further.'
John Smith replied: 'This, Sir, is an organized conspiracy to hang our client; and so I suspected from our correspondence with the Crown solicitors. You will remember how we failed to extract a report from them as to Professor Taylor's analytic methods. They refused my demand, and were supported by Sir George Grey at the Home Office, who stated that it was an unprecedented one, and that these matters would doubtless appear in cross-examination. I answered that the case was equally unprecedented, this being the first in which strychnia had been cited as a means of murder; and respectfully denied that Professor Taylor's analyses could form a proper subject of cross-examination, unless they were duly recorded in writing and the depositions read to the judges and the jury. Nevertheless, Sir George brushed me off. Yes, Sir, Mr James's questions are inadmissible, as every member of the Bar knows well; but what remedy have we?'
Mrs Brooks's testimony that she had seen Dr Palmer holding up a tumbler of water against the gas-light at The Raven Hotel was not unfavourable to the Doctor; for she had also deposed that many other people in Shrewsbury, whom Dr Palmer could not possibly have dosed, suffered from the same sickness as Cook. Yet in his summing up the Lord Chief Justice failed to remind the jury of this important fact.
When Herring, the commission agent, known on the Turf as 'Mr Howard', was examined, and the Prosecution wished him to reveal the contents of Cook's betting-book, Serjeant Shee objected: 'We cannot have this given in evidence, my Lord, since the book is lost.'
The Lord Chief Justice, gazing sternly at Serjeant Shee, said: 'According to the last account we heard, it was in the prisoner's possession.'
Serjeant Shee replied with a reproachful cough: 'My Lord, I don't think there is any proof of his ever having touched it.'
Here the Attorney-General interrupted: 'We will show that it lay in the dead man's room on the Tuesday night before his death, and that the prisoner was afterwards observed looking about…'
Yet nobody at The Talbot Arms Hotel claimed to have seen the book later than the Monday night, when Elizabeth Mills noticed it hanging from the mirror.
Nor did the Lord Chief Justice point out the patent discrepancy between a statement promised from Elizabeth Mills by the Attorney-General; namely, that she handed Cook's cup of coffee, ordered on the Monday morning, to Dr Palmer (who therefore had an opportunity of doctoring it); and the statement which she actually made, namely that she gave it directly to Cook. He also withheld comment on the even graver discrepancy pointed out by Serjeant Shee between her statements at the inquest and at the trial. Whereas she had told the Coroner that the broth tasted very good, and mentioned no harmful after-effect, her new story was that she had been seized by violent vomiting which incapacitated her for five hours. Moreover, her original deposition contained no reference to the twitchings and jerkings which she now described with much pantomimic by-play.
It was noted, too, that the Lord Chief Justice eulogized all the medical witnesses called for the Crown and allotted seats in Court; while seeming to regard all witnesses for the Defence as ignoble or inferior beings since, by his own orders, they were condemned to stand. Some of these he offered undeserved disrespect, and applauded only one, Dr Wrightson of Birmingham, whose evidence lent some slight support to Professor Taylor's theories. His recommendation of Sir Benjamin Brodie went: 'The jury will take into consideration the solemn opinion of this distinguished medical man: that he never knew a case in which the symptoms he has heard described arose from any disease. He has witnessed the various diseases that afflict the human frame in all their multiplicity, and he knows of no natural disease such as will answer the symptoms which he has heard described in the case of Cook; and, if death did not arise from natural disease, then the inference is that it arose from other causes.'
The alleged cause was, of course, strychnine poisoning. Now, Sir Benjamin Brodie based his solemn opinion on two irreconcilable statements: the first made by Elizabeth Mills-who was proved to have greatly enlarged and embroidered on the evidence she gave at the inquest-and the other by Dr Jones of Lutterworth, whose evidence had remained unchanged. If what Elizabeth Mills swore was all true, and if Sir Benjamin was omniscient, then the Lord Chief Justice might have been justified in saying that Cook's symptoms accorded with no known disease, and that strychnine might therefore be suspected-except that neither did some of the symptoms reported coincide with those expected from strychnine poisoning. On the other hand, if Elizabeth Mills lied, then the description of Cook's death as given by Dr Jones, a trained medical practitioner, became perfectly consistent with natural disease. This is to say: if Mr Stevens and Mr Gardiner had influenced Miss Mills by culling a number of symptoms from the recent case of Mrs Dove, who had died from strychnine, and suggesting that she had noticed them in Cook; and if she perjured herself in swearing to these; and if her evidence must be given equal value with Dr Jones's-why, then Sir Benjamin Brodie could hardly make any other reply than he did when asked the question. How could he assign the cause of Cook's death to any known disease, when most of the symptoms were fictitious and irreconcilable with the genuine ones?
Serjeant Shee made great efforts to bring out this point in cross-examining Sir Benjamin:
SERJEANT SHEE: Would you think that the description of a chambermaid, and of a provincial medical man who had seen only one case of tetanus, could be relied on to state what sort of disease Cook's was?
THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE (nodding wisely to the jury): He is asked, on the assumption that both witnesses are speaking the truth.
SIR BENJAMIN BRODIE (uncomfortably): I must say, I thought that the description was clearly given.
SERJEANT SHEE: On which of the two would you rely, supposing that they differed-the chambermaid or the medical man?
THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE (in injured tones): This is hardly a proper question.
MR BARON ALDERSON: It is a proper observation for you to make, Brother Shee!
The question was, of course, disallowed. Surely it had been most properly put? If Sir Benjamin had answered that he relied on Elizabeth Mills's untrained observations, then the jury would have set the fact against their memories of certain most disingenuous answers given by this witness when questioned about her meetings with Messrs Stevens and Gardiner. If, however, Sir Benjamin had answered that he preferred Dr Jones's testimony, the inference would have been that Cook died from natural causes.
We believe that this ruling by the Lord Chief Justice did more to hang Dr Palmer than any other. Yet it is an axiom of the Law, dear to all Englishmen, that in any criminal trial, the presiding judge is 'prime counsel for the prisoner'.
Serjeant Shee's speech for the Defence was eloquent enough. He could show that Dr Palmer and Cook owned a race-horse in common; had contracted certain debts jointly; and trusted each other to lay money on horses. The brotherliness of their relations was suggested by a letter, produced in evidence, which Cook wrote Dr Palmer from Lutterworth, on January 4th, 1855.
My dear Sir,
I went up to London on Tuesday to back St Hubert for £50, and my commission has returned 10/1d. I have therefore booked £250 to £25 against him, to gain money. There is a small balance of £10 due to you, which I forgot to give you the other day. Tell Will Saunders to debit me with it on account of your share in training Pyrrhine. I will also write asking him to do so, and there will be a balance due to him from me.
Yours faithfully,
J. PARSONS COOK
But Serjeant Shee attempted too much. Cheshire's and Padwick's testimony proved conclusively that Dr Palmer had forged Cook's signature to a paper and got for himself the money Cook won at Shrewsbury. Granted, Cook's murder could have benefited him neither in the long run nor in the short, since liabilities to the amount of twelve thousand pounds were outstanding; yet the evidence of fraud was plain. A plea that Dr Palmer had taken advantage of Cook's natural sickness to rob him would have been a safer one. Dr Palmer would, it is true, have received a very severe prison sentence in consequence; but the crime of forgery, which he had admitted on oath, already made him liable to that.
Serjeant Shee surprised the Court with a most remarkable statement. 'I believe,' he said, 'that truer words were never pronounced than those uttered by the prisoner when pleading "Not Guilty" to this charge. I will prove to you the sincerity with which I declare my personal conviction of his innocence-when I meet the case foot by foot.'
The Attorney-General replied: 'You have heard from my learned friend the unusual and, I may add, the unprecedented assurance of his personal faith in his client's innocence. When he made it-and I know no man in whom the spirit of truth is more keenly alive-he gave expression to what he sincerely believed. But what would he think of me if, imitating his example, I at this moment revealed to you upon my word and honour, as he did, what is my personal conviction from a meticulous review of the whole case?'
The Attorney-General could not, it seems, forget his private conversation with Frank Swindell, who had accused Dr Palmer of 'doctoring him for death' at the Wolverhampton Races.
Among the witnesses, other than medical, called for the Defence and present in Court, where George Myatt, the Rugeley saddler; John Sergeant, a racing man; and, finally, Jeremiah Smith. Myatt testified that he had been at The Raven Hotel on the night when Cook complained of the brandy, and that nobody could have doctored Cook's brandy and water without his knowledge. He also testified that a great many people fell sick at Shrewsbury Meeting, and that Dr Palmer himself had vomited violently out of the carriage window on his return to Rugeley by the six-o'clock Express. Cook, Dr Palmer, and himself had then discussed the prevalence of these symptoms and thought that the Shrewsbury water supply must have been tainted. Myatt swore that Cook had been very drunk, even before he took the brandy and water; and that Cook's words were not: 'It burns my throat dreadfully,' but: 'There's something in it.'
Sergeant testified that at the Liverpool Races, a week previously, Cook had asked him to look at his ulcered throat, and that he had made the same request on several other occasions. 'He also went to Dr Palmer,' Sergeant continued, 'and in my hearing applied for a mercurial lotion called "black wash".' From Sergeant's further evidence it seems probable that Cook's remark, 'It burns my throat dreadfully', did not refer to the brandy, but was a retrospective complaint about an injury done him at Liverpool Railway Station. Gingerbread nuts were sold on the course-some innocuous, others containing cayenne pepper-and when the races had ended Dr Palmer humorously gave Cook one of the latter sort. At The Raven, Cook drunkenly suspected Dr Palmer of dosing the brandy too-the peppered ginger-nut being still active in his memory.
Jeremiah Smith testified to Cook's not possessing enough money, after the Shrewsbury Races, to pay him more than five pounds of the £41.10s. debt due, and saying: 'I can't let you have the remainder, Jerry, because I've given most of my winnings to Palmer, but you shall be paid when I've been to Tattersall's on Monday.' Smith also testified that he had waited for Dr Palmer's return to Rugeley on the fateful Monday night, and met him at ten minutes past ten outside The Talbot Arms Hotel. Cook, whom they then visited briefly, in his bedroom, complained: 'You're late tonight, Doctor. I didn't expect you to look in. So I took Dr Bamford's pills'-the inference being that he would not have taken them, had Dr Palmer come earlier. When Cook told them both: 'I was up this afternoon talking with Saunders and Ashmole,' Dr Palmer answered: 'You oughtn't to have done that.'
Afterwards, so Jeremiah Smith testified, Dr Palmer and himself walked to The Yard, a few hundred paces away, and spent half an hour in the company of old Mrs Palmer, who had important business to discuss. He then left Dr Palmer at The Yard, and went home. As for the allegedly poisoned broth, he had sent it as a gift to Cook, who was not well enough to accept an invitation to dine; this broth being the liquor in which his own leg of mutton had been boiled at The Albion Inn. That Mrs Rowley, the cook, should take it along the street in a saucepan, to be warmed up at Dr Palmer's and there poured into the invalid-cup, was very natural, considering the distance and the state of the weather. Jeremiah Smith also testified to having once watched Ben Thirlby, Dr Palmer's assistant, dress Cook's ulcered throat with caustic.
Nevertheless, the good impression thus made on the jury was entirely swept away by the Attorney-General's cross-examination of Jeremiah Smith, on matters irrelevant to the trial. Serjeant Shee knew that any objections to these he might lodge would be vain. Indeed, Smith gave such a lamentable exhibition of cowardice that the spirit of tragedy which had for days brooded over the Old Bailey gave place, at times, to farce.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Have you known Palmer long?
SMITH: I have known him long and very intimately, and have been employed a good deal as an attorney by Palmer and his family.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: In December, 1854, did he apply to you, asking you to attest his brother Walter Palmer's proposal for £13,000 in The Solicitors' and General Insurance Office?
SMITH: I cannot recollect; if you will let me see the document I will tell you.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Will you swear that you were not applied to?
SMITH: I will not swear either that I was not applied to for that purpose, or that I was. If you will let me see the document I shall recognize my writing at once.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: In January, 1855, were you applied to by Palmer to attest his brother's proposal for £13,000 in The Prince of Wales Office?
SMITH: I don't recollect.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Don't recollect? Why, £13,000 was a large sum for a man like Walter Palmer, wasn't it, who hadn't a shilling in the world? Didn't you know that he was an uncertified bankrupt?
SMITH: I knew that he had been a bankrupt some years before, but not that he was an uncertified bankrupt. I knew that he had an allowance from his mother, and I believe that his brother William [the prisoner] gave him money at different times.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: During 1854 and 1855, where in Rugeley did you live?
SMITH: In 1854, I think, I resided partly with William Palmer, and sometimes at his mother's.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Did you sometimes sleep at his mother's?
SMITH: Yes.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Did you sleep in his mother's room-on your oath, were you not intimate with her?-you know well enough what I mean.
SMITH: I had no other intimacy, Mr Attorney, than a proper intimacy.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: How often did you sleep at her house, though having an establishment of your own close by?
SMITH: Frequently. Two or three times a week.
[Here one of the jurymen sniggered, and slowly a laugh spread through the Court.]
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Explain how that happened.
SMITH: Sometimes her son Joseph or other members of her family were on a visit there, and I went to see them. We used to play a game of cards, and have a glass of gin and water, and smoke a pipe perhaps; and then they would say: 'It is late-you had better stop all night.' And I did.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Did that continue for three or four years?
SMITH: Yes; and I sometimes used to stop there when nobody was at home-when they were all away, the mother and everybody.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: And you have slept at the house when the sons were not there and the mother was?
SMITH: Yes. Two or three times a week.
[More laughter.]
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: But since there was no one to smoke and drink with, you might have gone home. Will you say on your oath that there was nothing but a proper intimacy between you and Mrs Palmer?
SMITH: I do.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Now, I shall turn to another subject. Were you called upon to attest a further proposal for £13,000 by Walter Palmer, in The Universal Assurance Office?
SMITH: I cannot say; if you will let me see the proposal I shall know.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Answer me, Sir, as an attorney and a man of business: did William Palmer ask you to attest a proposal for a £13,000 assurance on the life of his brother Walter?
SMITH: If I could see any document on the subject I daresay I should recollect.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Do you remember getting a five-pound note for attesting an assignment of such a policy by Walter Palmer to his brother?
SMITH: I don't recollect positively.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL (handing a document to witness): Is that your signature?
SMITH (after considerable hesitation): It is very like my signature, but I have some doubt about it.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Read the document and tell me, on your solemn oath, whether it is your signature.
SMITH: I have some doubt whether it is mine.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: I will have an answer from you on your oath, one way or another. Isn't that your handwriting?
SMITH: I believe that it is not my handwriting, but a very clever imitation of it.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Will you swear that it is not?
SMITH: I will.
MR BARON ALDERSON: Did you ever make such an attestation?
SMITH: I don't recollect, my Lord.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Look at the other signature there, 'Walter Palmer is that his signature?
SMITH: I believe so.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Look at the attestation and the words 'signed, sealed and delivered are they in Mr Pratt's handwriting?
SMITH: They are.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Did you receive that from Mr Pratt?
SMITH: I can't swear that I did. It might have been sent to William Palmer.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Did you receive it from William Palmer?
SMITH: I don't know; very likely I did.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: If that be the document he gave you, and if those are the signatures of Walter Palmer and of Pratt, is not the other signature yours?
SMITH: I'll tell you, Mr Attorney…
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Don't 'Mr Attorney' me, Sir! Answer my question! Will you swear that it isn't your handwriting?
SMITH: I believe it is not.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Did you apply to The Midland Counties Insurance Office in October, 1855, to be appointed their agent at Rugeley?
SMITH: I think I did.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Did you yourself send them a proposal on the life of Bate for £10,000?
SMITH: I did.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Did William Palmer ask you to send that proposal?
SMITH: Bate and Palmer came together to my office with a prospectus, and asked me if I would write and get appointed agent for that company in Rugeley, because Bate wanted to raise some money.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: And you did so?
SMITH: I did.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Was Bate at that time superintending William Palmer's stud and stables at a salary of one pound a week?
SMITH: I can't tell his salary.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: After that, did you try to make the widow of Walter Palmer give up her claim on her husband's policy?
SMITH: I did.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Did you receive a document from Pratt to lay before her at Liverpool?
SMITH: William Palmer gave me one which had been directed to him.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Did the widow refuse to sign the document?
SMITH: She said she would like her solicitor to see it. So I said: 'By all means,' and brought it back because I had no instructions to leave it.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Didn't she say: 'I understood from my husband that the insurance was for £1000?'-or words to that effect?
Serjeant Shee objected to the question. What passed between Walter Palmer's widow and the witness could be no evidence against the prisoner. The Attorney-General explained that the question was intended to affect the witness's credit, and was most important in that respect. The Court ruled that it could not be put.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Don't you know that Walter Palmer obtained nothing for making that assignment?
SMITH: I believe that he ultimately did get something for it.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Don't you know that what he got was a bill for £200?
SMITH: Yes; and had a house furnished for him.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Don't you know that the bill was never paid?
SMITH: No, I do not.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Now, I'll refresh your memory a little with regard to those proposals (handing witness a document). Look at that, and tell me whether it is in your handwriting.
SMITH: It is.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Now, I ask you, were you not applied to by William Palmer in December, 1854, to attest a proposal on the life of his brother Walter for £13,000 in The Solicitors' and General Insurance Office?
SMITH: I might have been.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Were you, or were you not, Sir? Look at that document, and say have you any doubt upon the subject?
SMITH: I have no doubt that I might have been applied to.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Do not trifle, Sir, with the Court, and with the jury, and myself! Have you any doubt whatever that in January, 1855, you were called on by William Palmer to attest a further proposal for £13,000 on his brother's life in another office? Look at the document and tell me.
SMITH: I see the paper, but I don't recall the circumstances.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: That piece of paper seems to burn your fingers?
SMITH: No, upon my honour, it does not. I might have signed it in blank.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Do you usually sign attestations of this nature in blank?
SMITH: I have some doubt whether I did not sign several blanks.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: On your oath, looking at that document, don't you know that William Palmer asked you to attest that proposal upon his brother's life for £13,000?
SMITH: He did apply to me to attest proposals in some office.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Were they for large amounts?
SMITH: One was for £13,000.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Now the truth is coming out! Were you asked to attest another proposal for a like sum in The Universal Assurance Office?
SMITH: I might have been.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: They were made much about the same time, were they not? You did not wait for the answers to the first application before you made the second?
SMITH: I don't know that any answers came back at all.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Will you swear that you were not present when Walter Palmer executed the deed assigning the policy upon his life to the prisoner, William Palmer? Now, be careful, Mr Smith, because, depend upon it, you shall hear of this again if you are not!
SMITH: I will not swear that I was; I think I was not. I am not quite positive.
The Attorney-General's questioning of Jeremiah Smith's relations with old Mrs Palmer, and his previous questioning of George Myatt, the saddler, as to whether he ever slept in the same hotel bed as Dr Palmer, were both by way of revenge. Serjeant Shee, to throw discredit on Elizabeth Mills's testimony, had suggested that she was a woman of loose morals. Elizabeth Mills, however, answered with jaunty and mocking defiance, whereas Jeremiah Smith vacillated-torn between the fear of losing his character if he owned to being the bed-fellow of a rich woman over twenty years his senior, and fear of offending her if he denied the imputation too indignantly. Very few of his answers were given without hesitance and a decided embarrassment, which left its imprint on the jury's mind.
Serjeant Shee tried to make good the damage when he re-examined Smith.
SERJEANT SHEE: How long have you known Mrs Palmer?
SMITH: For twenty years. [In answer to further questions:] I should think she must now be about sixty years of age. William Palmer is not her eldest son. Joseph, the eldest, resides at Liverpool, and is a timber merchant. He must be forty-five or forty-six years of age. George, the next eldest son, resides at Rugeley and was frequently at his mother's house. John, the youngest, a clergyman of the Church of England, lived there until two years ago, except when he was away at college. There is also a daughter, who lives constantly with her mother; and three servants are kept. The house is a large one, and contains many spare bedrooms. I slept in the room nearest the old church.
SERJEANT SHEE: Is there any pretence for saying that you have ever been accused of improper intimacy with Mrs Palmer?
SMITH: I hope not.
SERJEANT SHEE: I repeat: is there any pretence for saying so?
SMITH: There ought not to be.
SERJEANT SHEE: Pray answer me directly! Is there any truth in the suggestion?
SMITH: People may have made it, but they had no reason for doing so.
SERJEANT SHEE: But was there any truth in such a statement if made?
SMITH: I should say not. There ought not to be any pretence for anything of the kind.
[Laughter.]
MR BARON ALDERSON: No, Brother Shee. It was only two or three times a week he slept there!
[Loud laughter.]
The Attorney-General then made a telling speech for the Crown, secure in the knowledge that he had the last word, and need fear no rebuttal-though why the Prosecution always should have the last word in murder trials, we have been unable to fathom. Serjeant Shee nevertheless contended that since the Attorney-General had raised the new matter of Walter Palmer's life insurance, and the proposals for it made to various offices, the Defence was entitled to reply. But the Lord Chief Justice ruled: 'We are of opinion that you have no right to reply,' and Mr Baron Alderson supported him in this.
Dr Palmer, while in the dock, wrote a facetious note to his Counsel:
***
I wish there was two and a half grains of strychnia in old Campbell's acidulated draught-solely because I think he acts unfairly.
The Lord Chief Justice summed up in a sense which left the jury no choice but to find a verdict of 'Guilty yet Serjeant Shee courageously ventured on a final protest:
SERJEANT SHEE: The question which your Lordship has submitted to the jury is whether Cook's symptoms were consistent with death by strychnia. I beg leave…
THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE (in a tone of vexation): That is not the question which I have submitted to the jury; it is a question! I have told them that unless they consider the symptoms consistent with death by strychnia they ought to acquit the prisoner.
SERJEANT SHEE: It is my duty not to be deterred by any expression of displeasure; I stand before a much higher tribunal than even your Lordships', and must therefore submit what I believe to be the proper question. I submit to your Lordships that the question whether Cook's symptoms are consistent with death by strychnia is a wrong question, unless followed by the phrase: '…and inconsistent with death from other and natural causes'. I submit that the question should be whether the medical evidence has established, beyond all reasonable doubt, that Cook died by strychnia. It is my duty to make this submission, as it is your Lordships', if I am wrong, to over-rule it.
MR BARON ALDERSON: It is done already. You did so in your speech.
THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE (addressing the jury): Gentlemen, I did not submit to you that the question upon which alone your verdict should turn is whether the symptoms of Cook were those of strychnia. I said that this is a most material question, and I desired you to consider it. I said: if you think that he died from natural disease-and not from poisoning by strychnia-you should acquit the prisoner. Then I went on to say that if you believed that the symptoms were consistent with death from strychnia, you should consider the other evidence given in the case to see whether strychnia had been administered to Cook and, if so, whether it had been administered by the prisoner at the bar. These are the questions which I now again put to you. You must not find a verdict of 'Guilty' unless you believe that strychnia was administered to the deceased by the prisoner at the bar; but, if you do believe that, it is your duty towards God and man to find the prisoner guilty.
At the conclusion of this address the jury retired from the Court, at eighteen minutes past two o'clock. They filed back into their box at twenty-five minutes to four, after an absence of one hour and seventeen minutes. The prisoner, who had meanwhile been removed, was simultaneously placed in the dock.
A buzz of excitement which ran round the Court on the re-appearance of the jury was instantly hushed by the Clerk of the Arraigns' question: 'Gentlemen of the Jury, are you all unanimous in your verdict?'
The Foreman replied with a downright: 'We are.'
Whereupon the Clerk of the Arraigns asked: 'How say you, gentlemen? Do you find the prisoner at the bar guilty, or not guilty?'
The Foreman rose and announced in distinct and firm tones: 'We find the prisoner guilty.'
Dr Palmer, who exhibited some slight pallor and the least possible shade of anxiety upon the return of the jury to the box, almost instantly won back his self-possession and his demeanour of comparative indifference. He maintained his perfect calm; and when sentence was being passed, he looked an interested, although utterly unmoved, spectator. We may truly say that during the whole of this protracted trial his nerve and calmness have never for a moment forsaken him.
The Clerk of the Arraigns then turned to him with: 'Prisoner at the bar, you stand convicted of murder; what have you to say why the Court should not give you judgement to die according to the law?' This question is of a formal nature; and the prisoner neither made, nor was expected to make, any answer.
Thereupon the judges assumed the black cap, and Lord Chief Justice Campbell pronounced sentence in the following terms:
'William Palmer, after a long and impartial trial you have been convicted of the crime of wilful murder. In that verdict my two learned brothers, who have so anxiously watched this trial, and myself, entirely concur. The case is attended with such circumstances of aggravation that I will not dare to touch upon them. Whether this be the first and only offence of the sort which you have committed is certainly known only to God and your own conscience. It is seldom that such a familiarity with the means of death can be achieved without long experience; but for this offence, of which you have been found guilty, your life is forfeited. You must prepare to die; and I trust that, as you can expect no mercy in this world, you will, by a repentance of your crimes, seek to obtain mercy from Almighty God. The Act of Parliament under which, at your own request, you have been brought here for trial, allows us to direct that the sentence shall be executed either within the jurisdiction of the Central Criminal Court, or in the county where the offence was committed. We think that the sentence ought to be executed in the county of Stafford, and we hope that this terrible example will deter others from committing such atrocious crimes: for it will be seen that, whatever art, or caution, or experience may accomplish, yet such an offence will surely be found out and punished.
'However destructive poison may be, it is ordained by Providence, for the safety of its creatures, that there are means of detecting and punishing those who administer it. I again implore you to repent, and to prepare for the awful change which awaits you. I will not seek to harrow up your feelings by enumerating the circumstances of this foul murder; but content myself now by passing upon you the sentence of the law.
'Which is: that you be taken from hence to the gaol of Newgate, and be thence removed to the gaol of the county of Stafford-the county in which the offence for which you stand convicted was committed-that you be taken thence to the place of execution, and there hanged by the neck until you be dead, and that your body be afterwards buried within the precincts of the prison; and may the Lord of Heaven have mercy on your soul!
'Amen.'
***
Dr Palmer's notorious comment on the verdict-the sporting phrase: 'It was the riding that did it', which he wrote on another scrap of paper and tossed to his solicitor-has been read as an unwilling tribute to the Attorney-General's masterly conduct of the Prosecution. But we have it from his solicitor, John Smith, that it referred solely to the Lord Chief Justice's discreditable jockey-ship on the Bench.
聚合中文网 阅读好时光 www.juhezwn.com
小提示:漏章、缺章、错字过多试试导航栏右上角的源