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gether; and where a prisoner after conviction escapes and is retaken, whether he is the same that was convicted.[1] The former cases we have noticed under the heads of Supposititious Children, vol. i, p. 220, warning our readers not to be too hasty in determining identity upon mere resemblance.[2] And in the*
- ↑ For the Scotch law on this subject see Burnett's Crim. Law, 595.
- ↑ Cases of mistaken identity have occurred more frequently than persons unacquainted with the subject could suppose. We shall relate a few instances. At the Old Bailey sessions, for September 1822, before the Common Serjeant and Middlesex Jury, Joseph Redman was indicted for assaulting William Brown, on the King's highway, and taking from his person a gold watch, &c. his property. Prosecutor stated, on cross-examination, that he knew a man of the name of Greenwood, so much like the prisoner, with his hat on, that he should hardly know one from the other. Greenwood was in custody, and appeared at the bar, when the similarity between them struck every body with astonishment. The prisoner, Redman, proved an alibi, and the jury returned a verdict of not guilty. We have frequently in the preceding parts of our work alluded to the case of Richard Coleman, a brewer's clerk, who was indicted at the assizes held at Kingston, in Surry, in March 1749, for the rape and murder of Sarah Green on the 23d of July preceding, when he was capitally convicted, and executed on Kennington Common, on the 12th of April 1749. In this case, Coleman was positively sworn to by Sarah Green, just before her death, as being one of the assailants. Two years after the execution of this unfortunate man, it was discovered that James Welch, Thomas Jones, and John Nicholls, were the persons who had treated Sarah Green in the inhuman manner which had occasioned her death. John Nicholls was admitted King's evidence, and Welch and Jones were accordingly convicted and executed. Another case in which the identity of a person was erroneously sworn to, was that of Mr. James, a tailor, who was robbed on the Dulwich road, by the notorious gang of highwaymen that infested the environs of London, and was headed by a person named Cooper, who, after a life of crime, suffered death for the murder of Saxby, near Dulwich. In this case Mr. James swore positively to two soldiers in the Guards, who were accordingly tried for the offence, but. fortunately, acquitted. A short time after this event the same gang robbed one Jackson, a farmer, in a lane near Croydon, for which robbery two farriers, named Skelton and Killet, were apprehended, and being tried at the ensuing assizes for Surry, the latter was acquitted, but the former was convicted on the positive oath of the person robbed, and, although innocent, suffered death.
