Book Description

Excerpt from The Law Magazine and Law Review, or Quarterly Journal of Jurisprudence, Vol. 18: November, 1864, to February, 1865 King's authority, invested with his official character, and acting as his representative. That it should be left to private feeling in any case, to draw the line between tort and crime, is an anomaly which cannot be defended by any one taking a rational view of the obligation of the executive, but in the case under notice, it is rendered all the more objectionable by the effect the accuser's decision has upon the position of the accused. After reading Emlyn's preface, it is curious to notice how very much easier it now is to convict of crime than to cast in damages in such cases. The combined effect of an old saw and a modern statute is, to place the prisoner, as distinguished from the defendant, at a very serious disadvantage. Recent legislation has made the parties to civil actions competent and compellable witnesses in their own cause, and therefore, a plaintiff suing one who has assaile! His body by blows, or his reputation by words, may be met with the testimony of his assailant, given under the same 'sanction, and open to the same scrutiny, as his own. An assault may be committed, or a libel written, under circumstances which, if detailed by an honest defendant, will save him from any but nominal damages, or may even obtain him a verdict from a sympathising jury. But let the same charge be preferred against him in a criminal court, and his oppor tunity of telling his own story is gone. The conditions may be the same, but he cannot detail them, nor will the jury know of them at all, unless his counsel can prove them aliunde, or better still, can extract them on cross-examination so that if the offence originated in some matter resting peculiarly in the knowledge of the two parties, an unscrupulous prose cutor has his adversary completely at his mercy. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.