HC Deb 06 July 1877 vol 235 cc822-3
SIR EARDLEY WILMOT

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If his attention has been directed to a trial for murder which took place at the Winchester Assizes on Monday the 2nd instant, at which Frances Isabella Stalland, aged 20, was convicted of the wilful murder of her illegitimate child, and to the report as given in the "Standard" newspaper, that the jury, after considering their verdict for forty minutes, found the prisoner Guilty, with a strong recommendation to mercy on account of her youth, her desertion by the father of the child, and the general circumstances surrounding the case; and that the judge, on passing sentence of Death, said he would forward the recommendation of the jury to the Secretary of State, but that neither he (the judge) nor the prisoner could expect that the sentence would be remitted; and, whether it is consistent with the prerogative of the Crown that the judge should say that he could not expect such recommendation of the jury would be attended to?

MR. ASSHETON CROSS

I have no official report whatever of anything that fell from the learned Judge who tried this ease, nor do I at the present moment know anything about the merits of the case, because the usual report has not yet reached me. But reading the Question as it is placed on the Paper, I should say all that the learned Judge meant to convey was this—that he did not himself agree with the recommendation of the jury, and would not probably back it up to the Secretary of State. I am sure that neither the learned Judge who tried the case, nor any Judge on the Bench, would for a moment think of interfering with the Prerogative of the Crown.