Justice?

Monday, November 12th., Chiltern Court, London.

I was talking recently to a magistrate and two barristers about a police court case involving a young woman. At issue was the sentence, as her 'guilt' was clearly established. In fact, and my interlocutors agreed with me, her upbringing (such as it was) and personal circumstances made her offending almost inevitable. No sentence was available to the court which might have a rehabilitative effect. Our discussion tended to the position that 'rehabilitation' is a mirage, an imaginary concept calculated to soothe the conscience of social reformers and the like. All rather depressing!

The conversation shifted to criminal trials. Apropos of the recent decision that in criminal trials the Crown counsel should in future be deprived of his traditional right of the last word to the jury, on the ground that the last word gave him an unfair advantage with the jury, both the barristers were strongly of the opinion that Crown counsel should lose also another right - the right to open the case with a formal presentation of the facts of the alleged crime as the Crown saw them and wished the jury to see them. The barristers held that the opening speech for the prosecution was at least as unfairly advantageous to the Crown as the final words were. It coloured the minds of the jury from the start, impregnating them with the idea that the accused was guilty, and no amount of rebutting evidence could entirely do away with the effect of the opening speech.

It became clear to me from the conversation that English legal procedure puts a very heavy handicap on any prisoner, and that a prisoner without professional help has almost no chance of being acquitted. Lastly, none of the three lawyers was convinced that the procedure of British criminal justice was in practice any fairer to the accused than the French procedure which so often arouses the indignation of Englishmen. And they would not deny that it was even less fair!