CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT. (Hansard, 30 June 1834)

Mr. Hughes Hughes
said, he rose to propose the omission of two offences enumerated in the clause,—larceny from the person, and larcenies after a previous conviction. He moved their erasure upon distinct and different grounds. If the Sessions were capable of trying any offence, it was that of larceny from the person, which, in the district comprised within the limits of the Bill, would, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, be stealing a handkerchief from the pocket. Now, surely, the time of the Judges of the land might be better employed than in trying trivial cases of that description. His (Mr. Hughes Hughes') objections to the offence of larceny, after a previous conviction, being included in the Clause were these. A person brought before the proposed tribunal for that offence would, in a manner, be prejudged, being branded with a former conviction, but for which he would not be tryable in that Court but by the Sessions. Under one of the statutes known as Peel's Acts, the punishment on a second conviction was increased from seven to fourteen years transportation; but the fact of a former conviction was a separate issue to be tried by the Jury after the finding of Guilty of the offence charged in the indictment. The circumstance of its being a second offence did 1004 not make the case more difficult of decision by the Jury and Justices at Quarter Sessions. Another and serious difficulty he foresaw. The fact of a previous conviction of the prisoner could very seldom be known to the committing Magistrate, who must therefore commit to the Sessions; the discovery being made just previously to the trial, a re-committal to the New Court, and fresh recognizances of witnesses would become necessary, and, in half the instances in question, the consequence would be, that the prosecutor refusing to incur the additional trouble and expense, the prisoner would escape. For the reasons he had assigned, he moved the erasure of the two offences from the Clause.

The Attorney General
agreed with the hon. Member, that larceny from the person was an offence, in the trial of which the superior Judges need not be employed, and he, therefore, consented to its erasure from the Clause. To the other proposal of the hon. Member he could not agree, because the second conviction of larceny was punishable with fourteen years' transportation, and because the Sessions would have power to try the case of a second offence sent to that Court by mistake, only that no mention must be made in the indictment, of the previous conviction, but it must be taken to be the prisoner's first offence.

Mr. Hughes Hughes
said, that after the explanation the Committee had just heard; and if the hon. and learned Attorney General thought it expedient, in the case he (Mr. Hughes Hughes) had supposed, to forego the provisions of Mr. Peel's Act, so far as regarded a second conviction for larceny, he could have no objection to abandon that part of his Motion, and confine himself to the erasure of larceny from the person.

Mr. Hughes Hughes
said, he rose to move pursuant to notice, for leave to bring up a Clause to provide, that all and singular the enactments, powers, and authorities, made and given in and by the Act 4th George 4, cap. 48, for enabling Courts to abstain from pronouncing sentence of death in certain capital felonies, should be deemed to extend, and should extend, to the proposed Court. As many hon. Members might perhaps remember, he 1005 (Mr. Hughes Hughes) moved, in the Parliament of 1832, for leave to bring in a Bill to the effect of his present proposition, and had the honour to be seconded by his Majesty's then Attorney General, the present Lord Chief Justice of England, who prepared and brought in the Bill with him, which passed the House of Commons, and literally had one opponent only in any of its stages; it was, however, thrown out in the House of Lords, in consequence of a difficulty which arose not upon the Bill itself, but upon an amendment proposed to be made in it. An additional reason for now making the enactment, which only sought to assimilate the practice at the Old Bailey to that which prevailed at the Assizes throughout the kingdom, of recording, instead of passing, sentence of death upon criminals not likely to be executed, might be urged from the circumstance, that the new Court would include certain districts of the Home Circuit, which enjoyed the benefit (for so he must consider it) of the Act to which he had referred. As he (Mr. Hughes Hughes) could not anticipate any objection to this humane proposal, he would not further trouble the Committee, but move, that the Clause be brought up.

The Attorney General
had great pleasure in seconding the proposition, and begged to compliment the hon. Member on his perseverance in its introduction. It was certainly high time, that the solemn mockery of the Judge putting on his black cap, and formally passing the awful sentence of death upon criminals which were not to be executed, should be done away with at the Old Bailey, as it already had been in every other Criminal Court in the country.