Jeannie's Demise by Ian Radforth

Author:Ian Radforth [Radforth, Ian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781771135139
Google: UXCJzQEACAAJ
Publisher: Between the Lines
Published: 2020-10-18T01:01:17+00:00

The Judge’s Charge to the Jury

Justice Morrison began his charge to the jury by observing that he had his own notes from the trial, covering 150 pages, which he was happy to read from if the jury required it. He remarked that “no less than sixty-six witnesses had been called, many of them with regard to the removal of the body from one place to another, but all with a view to keep up the link of circumstances both as to the identity of the body and of any of her articles of dress, and as to the circumstances attending her death.” He noted that the evidence was circumstantial, because no one had witnessed the abortion. The jury would have to depend on evidence from which the inference might be drawn that the crime charged was committed by the prisoners. Morrison observed that in the testimony there were discrepancies as to time, while at the same time the witnesses agreed in the main regarding the general fact. He was suggesting that this was good enough.

The judge then reviewed the sequence of events up to the identification of the body, in effect summarizing what witnesses had said. He observed that some of the witnesses, notably John Clements, expressed some uncertainties about the identity of the body. But the evidence of his son William “was very conclusive, both as to the body and the clothing.” He observed that it was unlikely, if Jane Gilmour were alive and in hiding, that she would have deposited her clothing in one place and a satchel in another. He explained that it was the jury’s responsibility to draw conclusions from the evidence and to satisfy themselves that the body was that of Jane Gilmour.

If the jury were confident the body was that of Jane Gilmour, then the question arose as to the cause of her death. If the jury were satisfied that she died as a consequence of an act performed by the prisoners, then in law the prisoners were guilty of murder. The law laid down that if death resulted from abortion then the crime was murder, and no matter what the jury might think of that, they must treat it as such. Ordinary elements of murder were “absent because the object of the person attempting the abortion was not to take the woman’s life, but to screen her from her shame. But in law the crime was murder.”

The judge next turned to the medical evidence. He commented that he had seldom heard medical evidence given so clearly as that of the physicians who performed the autopsy. While the physicians called by the defence had raised a doubt about impregnation, the Crown’s physicians, from what they saw, were confident that impregnation had indeed taken place. The defence witnesses emphasized the absence of a placental attachment. It was unfortunate, he said, that the medical witnesses for the prosecution were not examined on that point. Had they been examined, “a satisfactory answer might probably have been afforded.”

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