IMPRISONMENT WITHOUT TRIAL IN ENGLAND: [To THE EDITOR OF THE
" SPEOTATOE."] Sin,—Most of your readers are probably under the impres- sion that imprisonment without trial (except∎in the case of a person awaiting trial) is impossible in England. It would be• so if the spirit as well as the letter of Magna Charta and the Petition of Right were observed, or if we had a Court of Criminal Appeal. But unfortunately the thing is at present not only possible, but actually occurs. It requires an erroneous conviction to start with. The Home Secretary (or rather the official to whom he entrusts the case) can then report as fol- lows : " The prisoner has been wrongfully convicted, for there was a reasonable doubt of his guilt. But in my opinion he was guilty of a different offence, and therefore, instead of releasing him, I fix a term of imprisonment as a penalty for this new offence." The old conviction, though acknowledged to be wrongful, is left undisturbed in order to justify, from the legal point of view, the penalty intended to be inflicted on the new charge, and the whole process, even when the sen- tence is the heaviest possible penalty for the new offence, is. called dispensing mercy. The prisoner has no opportunity of making any defence to the new charge, which he hears of for the first time when be learns his sentence. This has occurred, and will occur again if the public does not protest against it. Is the public satisfied with it, and is it to become a precedent for the future P—I am, Sir, &c., OBSERVER.
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