The evidence adduced in these cases is usually a compound of truth
and falsehood. Some of the untruths sworn to are simply blunders,
resulting from the confused impressions and the defective memory of the
witnesses, others are deliberate inventions, made, sworn to, backed up,
and persevered in for the purpose of insuring a successful result for
the prosecution. Naturally the first impulse of the accused, when he is
allowed to speak for himself, is to refer to these murderous falsehoods;
and in the excitement and trouble of those critical moments, it is all
that some men can venture to do. Such criticisms of the prosecution are
often valuable to the prisoner from a moral point of view, but rarely
have they any influence upon the result of the trial. All things
considered, it must be allowed that they act best who do not forget to
speak the words of patriotism, according to the measure of their
abilities, before the judge's fiat has sealed their lips, and the hand
of British law has swept them away to the dungeon or the scaffold.
"Guilty" was the verdict returned by the jury against Bryan Dillon and
John Lynch. The evidence against them indeed was strong, but its chief
strength lay in the swearing of an approver named Warner, a callous and
unscrupulous wretch, from whose mind the idea of conscience seemed to
have perished utterly.
Pages:
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287