SIR JAMES LAWRENCEasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he has any objection to make public the reports of the medical officers who examined the convicted murderer Treadaway, and also the communication received from Mr. Justice Lush with reference to the commutation of the sentence passed upon Treadaway?
MR. ASSHETON CROSSSir, it has never been the practice to lay such communications upon the Table of the House, and, moreover, it would very often be impossible, as they are frequently made vivâ voce. But I have no objection to state in the present case that the prisoner was tried before one of the most 1362 experienced and eminent Judges upon the Bench. He had a fit in the course of the trial, and evidence was given as to epilepsy in his family and in his own case. Doubts occurred to the learned Judge as to the effect this had had in, weakening the prisoner's mind, and he recommended the inquiry which was made for his own satisfaction by two eminent medical gentlemen. He afterwards advised the commutation of the sentence, on the ground that the convict was an epileptic, and might be treated as a person who had been deprived by disease of the capacity he would otherwise have had to resist the criminal impulse. I do not think that any Secretary of State would have been justified in departing from the usual rule by refusing to advise Her Majesty to act in accordance with the recommendation of so experienced and able a Judge.