CRIMINAL facts have arisen after the trial, proving the verdict conclusively wrong. The exercise of the power of pardon .in the prerogative of the Crown does not satisfy the justice of the case—it only accords mercy where there may be no criminal guilt. Moreover, as it is given on the advice of the Secretary of State, and his inquiry must necessarily be informal and without publicity, cases might arise where a pardon would not satisfy public opinion. At the same time, celerity of punishment is absolutely necessary for the repression of crime, and so far no system of criminal appeal has duly satisfied that requirement. The Court of Crown Cases Reserved consists of a number of judges of the High Court—not less than five—and from their decision there is no appeal. The indictment must say that it is found by a jury of a particular county, and the offence charged must appear to have been committed in that county; this is known as the venue, and in former days, at any rate, was a great protection against the oppression of the subject on the part of the Crown. It prevented the Crown in the The venue. great p0wer fr0m removing a person whom it wished to get rid of from among his neighbours, and placing him on trial in a strange place where the influence of the Crown was greater. This is still true to a certain extent, as great injustice may be caused to a man by removing him from his neighbours and trying him at a distance from his friends and from the witnesses whom he might call for his defence. In Ireland, for instance, the greatest injustice might be done by removing an Orangeman from Belfast and trying him in a Roman Catholic county. But it has its evils where the area from which the jurors -are drawn is a small one, such as a town of a few thousand inhabitants. In that case a man charged, say, with fraud, may be protected by his friends from being properly punished for that fraud. In 1856 power was given for the first time to remove a prisoner for trial from any part of England to the Central Criminal Court. This was originally done in favour of a prisoner against whom there was great local animosity, but so long as the law is administered in quiet times by judges of the High Court there is no danger of injustice to any accused person. It has been mentioned above that in theory an indictment is the spontaneous act of the Grand Jury, but that in practice a Bill for that indictment is always presented by some individual to the Grand Jury. In theory the prosecution is on the part of the Crown; and this is so far true in fact that the Attorney-General, on behalf of the Crown, can in any case intervene, and either take the conduct of the prosecution out of the hands of the private person or enter what is called a nolle prosequi, which has the effect of stopping any further prosecution; but in practice such a course is never taken. It is obviously necessary that criminals should be arrested as soon as possible after the crime is committed, and that the arrest should not wait until an indictment has been found. Hence a practice has grown up, which has been largely extended of recent years, of having a Prelim- preliminary inquiry of the crime before justices, inquiry, the effect being that if there is no primd facie case a man is at once discharged, instead of being kept in custody until the Assizes are held, and the Grand Jury can inquire into the case. This procedure before justices was regulated by an Act of 1848, known as Jarvis’s Act, and is now almost universal. This procedure before justices is entirely different from the procedure for summary offences. It may be, though usually it is not, held in private; it is an inquiry and not a trial; the justices have to consider not whether the man is guilty, but whether there is such a primd facie case against him
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that he ought to be tried. If they think that there is, they commit him to prison to wait his trial, or require him to give security, with sureties, to the amount named by them for appearing to take his trial. If a coroner’s jury, on inquiring into any sudden death, finds that murder or manslaughter has been committed, that finding has the same effect as an indictment by a grand jury, and the man charged may be tried by the petty jury accordingly. The law and procedure of the Coroner’s Courts are now regulated by the Coroners Act, 1887 (50 & 51 Yict. c. 71). When there is a dead body c^°^r s of a person lying within the area of his jurisdiction, and there is reasonable cause to suspect that such person died a violent or unnatural death, or a sudden death of which the cause is unknown, or has died in prison, the coroner’s decision to hold an inquisition cannot be challenged. The verdict of guilty is followed by trial in the ordinary manner. For many years the costs of the prosecution of felonies, and also of many misdemeanours, were paid out of the public funds, raised in each county. After 1852 an annual sum was voted by Parliament for the reimbursement of half, and then of all, these costs to the counties, or rather localities, which paid them, and thus the cost of these prosecutions fell upon the Imperial Exchequer. In 1888 the proceeds of certain taxes were handed over to the local authorities, and they again became liable to pay these costs. With the organization of the police forces, which began about the year 1827 in London, and in 1834 in the United Kingdom generally, the police became the prosecutors in many cases. In 1879 an Act was passed (42 & 43 Yict. c. 22, amended by 47 & 48 Yict. c. 58) providing DIrector of for the payment of a director of public prosecu-pu&z/c tions, who was to act under the Attorney-General prosecuin such cases and under such conditions as mighttwnsbe settled by rules laid before Parliament, and in 1884 a further Act developed the system of the Act of 1884. The office of director is now held by the officer who, for the time being, is solicitor to the Treasury. He is subject to the direction of the Attorney-General; and in the cases provided for by the rules, which may be roughly taken to be the cases of the most serious crimes, or of crimes which require long and careful investigation, undertakes, always with the approbation of the Attorney-General, the prosecution in place of the private individual. The Attorney-General has always represented the Crown in criminal matters, and in State prosecutions appears in person on behalf of the Crown, and when he so appears has certain privileges as respects the reply to the prisoner’s defence and the mode of trial. The Attorney-General has a right on behalf of the Crown to institute in the High Court, by information, a prosecution for any misdemeanour, but he cannot so institute a prosecution for felony; any such information is tried by a jury in like manner as if it were an indictment. Preliminary jurisdiction in criminal cases is possessed by the Justices of the Peace, who may also under special Acts convict in a summary manner for offences of minor importance. The procedure for punishing summary offences is before two justices, or in the case of a stipendiary magistrate, one justice. This proceeding must not be confused with the preliminary procedure already mentioned before justices for an indictable offence, nor with the procedure before justices in relation to civil matters, such as the recovery of small sums of money. The proceeding begins either by the issue of a warrant for the arrest of the person charged, in which case a sworn information must be filed, or by a summons directing the person charged to appear on a certain day to answer the complaint made by the prosecutor. The jus-
