§ MR. EDWIN JAMESsaid, he would not detain the House many minutes, while he directed the attention of the right hon. Gentleman who was at the head of the Home Department to one or two facts connected with the case of Thomas Smethurst, who, it would be in the recollection of the House, was tried for and convicted of the crime of murder in the course of last year, and subsequently pardoned by the Crown. He was sure he need not apologise to the House for bringing it forward on account of the deep importance of the case, and the serious way in which it was calculated to affect the criminal jurisdiction of the country. In the few remarks he was about to make he begged to say that he had not the slightest desire to cast any imputation on the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary on account of the pardon which he had advised Her Majesty to grant to Thomas Smethurst, in which he believed the right hon. Gentleman was actuated not only by motives of humanity, but by those of the strictest and most impartial justice. But he wished the House to consider what would be the effect of this anomalous system of reversing a sentence, after a public trial, on private and ex parte evidence, which the public had no opportunity of knowing, and on which the verdicts of juries were reversed without the public or the jury knowing on what grounds they were reversed. If these proceedings were allowed to go on, and no public court of appeal were established, juries would become careless and indifferent as to the verdicts they gave, and the mode in which they discharged that most anxious duty of coining to a decision in trials for murder. For those simple reasons he wished to direct the attention of the Secretary of State to one or two facts which occurred after the trial of Thomas Smethurst. These facts were simple. On the 15th of August Thomas Smethurst was convicted of the crime of murder and sentenced to be executed. The trial was conducted before the Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer, one of the most humane Judges who ever adorned the bench, and from the range of his attainments singularly well qualified to deal with a case which depended very much upon a close scrutiny and careful analysis of the medical testimony. After the conviction, however, the attention of the country and of the press 228 was directed to serious doubts that were raised as its propriety, and representations were made to the Secretary of State on the subject, the result of which was that, at his request, as he (Mr. James) collected from letters in the newspapers, a most able and elaborate report was drawn up by the Judge who presided at the trial, containing probably an expression of his opinion of the case. Various statements by other parties with regard to the case were made to the Home Secretary, and on the 15th of November there appeared in The Times a letter from the right hon. Baronet who held that office to the Chief Baron, which, he had authority to say, was not sent for publication by his Lordship. The letter of the Home Secretary was to the effect that the Chief Baron's report upon the trial, together with the whole of the medical evidence, had been referred to Sir Benjamin Brodie, who had given it as his opinion that, though the facts were full of grave suspicion against Smethurst, there was not absolute evidence of his guilt; but that his (the Home Secretary's) advice to Her Majesty to grant a free pardon to the convict did not arise from any defect in the constitution and procedure of the legal tribunals, but from the difficulty of ordinary citizens dealing with matters which puzzled the most experienced medical men. The jury who had given their anxious attention to the subject during the five days of the trial thus found their verdict set at nought; but though the evidence upon which the jury arrived at that decision had been fully published, neither the report of the Lord Chief Baron nor the report of Sir Benjamin Brodie had ever been revealed. In point of fact, the public had had no opportunity of judging of the medical testimony upon which the verdict of the jury had been reversed and the convict pardoned. In making these observations he was not blaming the Home Secretary, who, under the existing system, could hardly have done otherwise than he did; but he felt that the responsibility of acting under such circumstances was too great to be thrown on any single individual; and he hoped to prevail upon the right hon. Baronet to introduce some measure for the purpose of removing so great an anomaly. He was far from wishing to trench on the prerogatives of the Crown in the right of granting pardon. That prerogative might well consist with the existence of a criminal court of appeal, because there might still be good reason to preserve to the Crown the right of granting 229 pardon on evidence which would not be admissible by a court of law, on a motion for a new trial. He thought the question was one well deserving the attention of the House and of the Government, and he would press it upon the Government that if they were not themselves prepared with any measure on the subject, they might at least accede to some rational and well-considered measure proposed by others for some court of appeal where pardons might be granted in such a way as would make patent to all the grounds on which the sentences were pronounced. In conclusion then he wished to ask, whether the Government contemplate the introduction of any Measure to give the Right of Appeal to persons convicted of capital and other crimes?