MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS. (Hansard, 13 August 1867)

§ MR. NEWDEGATE
said, he rose to call attention to a case of a painful nature, which had excited the deepest interest in Birmingham and the adjoining districts in the Midland counties. It was a case of murder of the most aggravated character. He made that statement on the best authority, for a Petition he had presented to that House on the subject was signed by the magistrate who committed the prisoner, ten other justices acting with that magistrate at Quarter Sessions, and by 3,000 of the most respectable inhabitants of Birmingham. He did not wish to say a word that might prejudice the unhappy man who had been reprieved; but he had communicated to the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary that he must call attention to the case, and he thought he was justified in bringing the matter forward. The coroner's jury had returned a verdict 1510 of wilful murder, the magistrates at Birmingham committed the prisoner on that charge, and the jury at the Warwick Assizes last month returned a verdict of wilful murder after a quarter of an hour's deliberation. It was therefore not surprising that, since the jury had not made the slightest recommendation to mercy, and since the Judge, Mr. Baron Pigott, had not held out the slightest hope to the prisoner, there should be in the Midland counties a strong feeling of astonishment that this prisoner had been reprieved. The prisoner, James Scott, had been cashier in the service of a firm, and was accused by John Pryse, a brother of one of the partners, of defalcation. The prisoner acknowledged the defalcation and begged for forgiveness, but was told that the example he had set rendered that impossible. He then went out of the office and asked a fellow workman in the business to let him have a revolver, and having obtained it, he loaded all the seven barrels. Returning to the office where John Pryse was, he deliberately shot that person while standing about eight paces from him. John Pryse then rushed at him, and was again shot by the prisoner through the breast. The partners rushed in and wrested the pistol from the prisoner, and the wounded man died in about ten minutes. When the prisoner was taken, he declared openly that he had committed the crime, and he added that John Pryse had been an enemy to him for some time. The reprieve of the prisoner had produced a deep feeling in Birmingham, because, taken in connection with the sentences in two cases of homicide and manslaughter at Walsall and Lichfield, it had produced the impression that such crimes as wilful homicide and murder would not meet with adequate punishment. There was no country in which the term of penal servitude was so uncertain as in England. Some criminals who were condemned to penal servitude for life obtained their liberty at the end of a period of seven years, while some condemned for a period shorter than life obtained their release in four years. The consequence was that the stipendiary as well as the other magistrates, and upwards of 3,000 of the inhabitants of Birmingham, had petitioned the House praying that it would assent to an Address to Her Majesty for a copy of the Memorial and Correspondence relating to the case and conviction of James Scott. The terms of the Motion he had to submit to the House 1511 were, as far as possible, those of that Petition. It appeared that the result of the inquiries and the Report of the Commission on Capital Punishment had tended, or was supposed to tend, in some degree, to the lamentable uncertainty as to the administration of the law which now prevailed. In the concluding paragraph of their Report, the Commissioners said— There are other questions of great importance upon which we have taken evidence, namely—1. The propriety of allowing an appeal on matters of fact to a Court of Law in criminal cases. 2. The mode in which the Crown is advised to exercise the prerogative of mercy by the Home Secretary. 3. The present state of the law as to the nature and degree of insanity which is held to relieve the accused from penal responsibility in criminal cases. It is obvious that those difficult questions are not confined to capital crimes only, but pervade the whole administration of the criminal law. They, therefore, require a more general and comprehensive treatment than the terms of the Commission under which we act will admit. We think, therefore, that while we should not be justified in making any recommendation to your Majesty on any of these points, we should fail in our duty did we not humbly solicit your Majesty's attention to them as requiring further investigation. It was evident that the Commissioners, by concluding their Report in this manner, had travelled far beyond the duty to which, by the terms of their Commission, they were confined. The unfortunate effect produced, at all events, was to unsettle the minds of the Judges and of the public, not only on the question of capital punishment, not merely as to matters of law, but of practice and administration. He was fully convinced that the present Secretary for the Home Department was perfectly incapable of anything like a wilful dereliction of duty either from fear or favour; but it might happen that the right hon. Gentleman had found himself in a position in which he could not exercise the sound judgment for which he was distinguished. Be that as it might, he felt, with the petitioners, that the House would act rightly in asking for an explanation of the case to which he had called attention. He begged to assure the Secretary for the Home Department that if he was of opinion that to press the Motion would be inconsistent with the practice of the House, or with that of the department over which he presided, he would at once withdraw it. He hoped, at the same time, that the right hon. Gentleman would give some explanation of circumstances which had produced deep discontent.

§ MR. AYRTON
said, he had been requested by his hon. Friend who had been lately elected a representative for Birmingham (Mr. Dixon) to second the Motion, and to express his regret that owing to his unavoidable absence he was unable to state to the House the views held by his constituents on the subject. He (Mr. Dixon) looked upon the case as one of the deepest importance to the administration of justice. Its position left upon the minds of the people of Birmingham a very painful impression, and they desired that, whatever conclusion the Secretary of State might have arrived at with regard to it, he would take some means to inform the public of the exact grounds on which he proceeded.

MR. GILPIN
said, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would not feel it to be his duty to give an answer to the appeal of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire in the present position of matters concerning the unhappy man whose case was under consideration. He adhered to the opinion he had on many previous occasions expressed in that House and elsewhere, that capital punishment must be done away with if we wished to make punishment certain. It could not be certain so long as the Home Office was besieged with petitions in favour of a policy of mercy on grounds more or less tenable. He did not regret that it was thus besieged, because he believed that the line was very narrow indeed which was drawn by juries between aggravated manslaughter and murder. But there should be a strong case to justify the trying over again in, that House that which had already been tried before a coroner, before a jury at the assizes, and afterwards considered by the Secretary for the Home Department. Appeals had on more than one occasion been, made in favour of a reprieve, but the present was the first in which a fair appeal had been made against one. It was all very well to say that many of the respectable inhabitants of Birmingham were excited because of the decision of the Home Office; but he knew that a large propor- 1513 tion of them were in favour of the immediate abolition of the punishment of death, a view which he found was shared in by public meetings he had attended in several towns throughout England.

§ MR. WHALLEY
said, he entirely agreed with the opinions expressed by the hon. Gentleman who had last spoken. The repugnance of juries to find a verdict of murder, which was certain to be followed by death, frequently led them to find verdicts contrary to the evidence. Public opinion was ahead of legislation in reference to capital punishment. This was the reason why it was so difficult to obtain convictions, and to carry out the sentence after conviction.

§ MR. GATHORNE HARDY
The discussion has gone rather beyond the necessity of the occasion. Certainly, in this instance, the jury did not neglect their duty, but found a verdict of "wilful murder," in a case which was undoubtedly one of wilful murder according to the law of this country. As far as I am concerned in this transaction, I have no hesitation in explaining all that has taken place in regard to it. At the same time I must decline to produce the Papers for which the hon. Gentleman has asked, it being quite inconsistent with the established practice to produce such papers, including, as they do, the letter of the Judge. The fact is that the senior Member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright)—not the junior Member, whom the hon. and learned Member for the Tower Hamlets has represented here tonight—called at the Home Office, bringing with him a memorial which he stated was signed by a large number of the inhabitants of Birmingham, and also by ten of the jurymen who had tried the prisoner, in favour of the commutation of the sentence. I immediately, without reading the memorial, the effect of which was stated to me, or taking any other step with respect to it, directed that it should be sent to the Judge for his notes of evidence, which I had not seen, and opinion. It was very material that it should be so sent, because the time for the execution of the prisoner was drawing nigh. The memorial was sent down to the Judge, and by return of post I received an answer, in which the Judge recommended that the sentence of death should be commuted to penal servitude. Under these circumstances, I had to consider what had been the uniform course followed by the Home Office in all such 1514 cases. I found that where the Judge had recommended the commutation of the sentence there was no precedent for the Home Secretary standing in the way, and that if I did so I should then myself become passer of a sentence or executioner rather than an adviser as to when the prerogative of mercy should be exercised. I therefore felt that I was bound to act upon that recommendation.

§ MR. NEATE
said, that the right hon. Gentleman had said nothing about another case. Supposing, as sometimes happened, a Judge were to fail in his duty by exercising an excessive lenity towards a criminal, was it ever a part of the duty of the person holding the high office of Home Secretary to remonstrate with the Judge in such a case?

§ MR. GATHORNE HARDY
I would rather deal with a concrete case when it arises than with an abstract one.

§ MR. NEWDEGATE
said, that he was perfectly satisfied that the right hon. Gentleman had acted in strict accordance with recent precedents and with the recent practice of the Home Office, and that so far his explanation was satisfactory; as such was the case, he would withdraw the Motion then before the House.