Some Reflections on the Crippen Trial After the trial was over the motion
was renewed. It then appeared that the matter complained of consisted of
15
Mr. Justice Darling said:
"Even if a
confession had really been made, it
“Murderer's Little
might still have been contempt to publish it. It might have been of such
Mistakes." “Flying from justice, Dr. Crippen forgot all about wireless teleg
a kind as would have been inadmissible in evidence." He further said that
raphy,
so long as the judges sat there, they
an article headed
it brought about his capture.
bolical skill and cunning with which the remains were mutilated), who knows what little missing particle of evidence he may have omitted to obliterate,
were determined that trial by newspaper should not be substituted for trial by jury. It was argued on this motion that at the time the cable was published (it was immediately after Crippen was
and it may prove the very thing to fix
arrested) no
his fate?" The court decided that this paragraph was, in the language
pending.
In the murder itself (despite the dia
of the applicant for the rule, "calculated to interfere with the cause of justice,”
and ordered the editor of the paper to pay a fine of £ 100, and to stand com
legal
proceedings
were
The court unanimously held
that an issue of a warrant was com mencement of proceedings, so far as the question of contempt for discussing the matter sub judice was concerned.
The court imposed a fine of £200 upon
mitted until the fine was paid. It was disclosed during the argument of the case that the particular editor who had passed the paragraph and caused it to
the editor who had permitted the cable to be published.
be inserted in the paper had been discharged by the proprietors of the
proprietors of the Evening News, be
paper for having inserted the para
course of the trial, a statement to the
graph
effect
A similar application was made for a rule against the Daily Chronicle for
Crippen asserted in his evidence, had agreed to secrete him in the cargo of the
having published two items of news
ship and to pass him on shore while
with respect to the Crippen case. One was to the effect that a sensational discovery had just been made that a
deadly poison had been purchased by Crippen some time before Mrs. Crippen's death. The other was the following paragraph from the Canadian correspon dent of the paper: “I have confidence
in the authority on which I cabled you the information sent last night, and I
am assured today from the same source,
that Crippen admitted in the presence of witnesses that he had killed his wife,
but denied that the act was murder.” Upon hearing this paragraph read Mr.
justice Pickford said: “Can you imagine more
pernicious
gossip
than
that?"
There was a third application of a similar nature against the editor and cause they had published, during the that the
quartermaster,
who,
the cargo was being discharged, had
been found in London and had been in consultation with the prosecuting coun sel for the Crown. In this case the editor was fined £200. These incidents show how decided
the English courts are, to use Mr. Justice Darling's language, in insisting that in all trials for capital offenses “trial by newspaper is not to‘ be sub stituted for trial by jury" in England. It is noteworthy that during the pro ceedings the London and provincial newspapers devoted many columns each day to a report of the proceedings, but the report in every instance, while it was introduced by certain descriptive
