WAS IT A FAIR TRIAL ?
TERN PIERRE VAQUIER, accused of the murder of Alfred Jones, landlord of the Blue Anchor ' Hotel, Byfleet, -sat through the trial apparently quite unconscious that his life was in danger ; now interested; now bored ; now taking copious notes, now turning away from the witnesses and paying no attention 'to their evidence. He is rather deaf, and the strain of listening was perhaps heavy. The evidence came to him through an interpreter, and perhaps that deprived it of some life. He seems to be, moreover, a man of a fantastically sanguine temperament, unable to believe that any harm could come to him, that anyone could be set against him. But the chief cause of his unconcern Was our English anxiety to give a defendant every chance; to hold him innocent until he is proved guilty. of Alfred Jones, landlord of the Blue Anchor ' Hotel, Byfleet, -sat through the trial apparently quite unconscious that his life was in danger ; now interested; now bored ; now taking copious notes, now turning away from the witnesses and paying no attention 'to their evidence. He is rather deaf, and the strain of listening was perhaps heavy. The evidence came to him through an interpreter, and perhaps that deprived it of some life. He seems to be, moreover, a man of a fantastically sanguine temperament, unable to believe that any harm could come to him, that anyone could be set against him. But the chief cause of his unconcern Was our English anxiety to give a defendant every chance; to hold him innocent until he is proved guilty.
Policemen, warders, detectives, counsel, the judge himself, all appeared to Vaquier to be treating him with such kindness and consideration that they surely could have no doubt of his innocence. Everyone seemed to be really on his side; the whole trial seemed another such formality as the InqueSt. In France, if there had been a suspicion of his guilt, everyone would have tried to badger him into a confession; he would perhaps have been suddenly confronted with the corpse, the prosecuting counsel would have stormed at him, the judge himself would have jerked out questions that assumed his guilt : " Why did you do this ? Why did yim do that ? When you saw your victim dead before you, did you not feel any remorse ? " (And, indeed, the fact that he was a stranger, ignorant of the procedure of English law, had made everyone determined to give him more latitude and sympathy than an ordinary defendant would obtain.) He had not been long enough in England to see that, with all privilege allowed, the evidence was being studied with a rigorous care.
Whatever the reason (and until the appeal is over we cannot dismiss the possibility that consciousness of his innocence had made him too confident), it is most un- fortunate that Vaquier should have been so misled. If he had been aware of his danger, there can be no doubt that he would have tried harder to remember, or to construct, evidence in his favour ; he would have given his counsel a better opportunity to defend him as power- fully as he, and we, could wish. This optimism and blindness was most certainly an obstacle to his defence. But, however unfortunate it may have been to Vaquier, it does not alter the fairness of his trial. Even if a defendant should plead guilty of murder and raise no hand on his own behalf, he is still given a fair trial.
There are two points to be remembered when we discuss the decision in any trial. The first is that the jury have been in a far better position to judge the evidence than we have. A newspaper report can never be complete, and even if it gave the trial verbatim from beginning to end, it would still afford only a hint of the comparative value of the evidence. Personal prejudice against witnesses must be avoided by the jury, of course, but no newspaper can express that indisputable air of honesty which may accompany the statement of one witness. No newspaper can say : " This witness gave her evidence in the most unsatisfactory manner," or "This witness, caught out and confused, recovered himself to say (an obvious lie) : I gave the papers to a friend of mine.' " The evidence is dead in print, it is alive in court. The second point is that these twelve men are in themselves as qualified to judge as any other men— as you or I—and they have a much greater sense of responsibility, and a much greater alertness to the -evidence than the best of armchair detectives. It is thus indisputable that, if a ju.1s give a unanimous verdict, almost any other twelve men, hearing the same evjalenee in the same circumstances, hearing the same speeches from counsel and the same summing-up, would have returned the same verdict.
The question whether the trial was fair can admit of np doubt. The question whether Vaquier is guilty of murder is not finally settled. On the evidence sub- mitted to them, and with the guidance of the summing- up, the jury have returned the only reasonable verdict. It is still possible that new evidence will be discovered, and many details are still deplorably obscure. There are still conflicts of testimony among the Crown witnesses ; the psychologyand the circumstances of that curious group of people at the ' Blue Anchor ' are by no means plain. A murder case can never bring any satisfaction to those who demand more than a " practical certainty " ; for, of course, only circumstantial evidence can be produced in the majority of such cases, and detective stories continually remind us that theoretically, a man may be even seen committing a murder and yet be innocent of the act. It is sobering to think that, with murder, 'the most heavily punished, the mostremilsive, the most anti; social of crimes, there is generally less evidence for judg- ment than with pick-pocketing, giving false weights, or defrauding an omnibus company. It is consdling to remember that every juryman feels his responsibility most keenly in so serious a case, and, actually, that circumstantial evidence has here most weight. For the greater the crime, the more pressing mnst.the motive be, and the more recognizable the criminal, ; the greater the crime, the more will, attention be roused and the more thoroughly will tracks be f011owed, examined, discarded, pieced together. There is no doubt that the danger of his position has been most horribly and completely brought home to Vaquier. There is no-doubt that, if he did not think it necessary before to make any effort to save hiniself, if he obstructed his own defence and, unwittingly ran himself into such grave straits, he will now be fay awake and he will be anxious to defend himself as well as he can be defended. And it is a mercy for Vaquier, and for our own peace of mind, that final decision will not be made upon a trial which he passed through in a roseate dream.
Whatever result the appeal shall have, we shall still be unable to withdraw our pity from him. Those notes he made were-for the autobiography he intended to write as soon as he was acquitted. The book would sell hundreds of thousands of copies, he expected. He would be a rich and honoured citizen of France. He would retire from active life, and devote himself to those beloved, ineppgru- ous,, rather absurd inventions of his. All the time he was building up fantasies. Innocent or guilty, he will remain in our imagination as he was when suddenly he heard the verdict, guilty of murder, given against him, and the bottom of his dream-world fell out. The realiza- tion of the bleak world of human law came upon him, and he -struggled and screamed against it. The warders lifted him up, opened the trap-door and pulled him out of court. He sat down to master the stupendous prospect of death, and the prison doctor, with the same human, inhuman, alien and balanced kindness which he had so eagerly accepted before and .so disastrously misunder- stood, stood by him and helped to restore him, A. P.
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