The Justice Collector
'IN this book,' Mr. Fielding begins, 'the author sets out the reasons underlying his strongly held belief that no one in England is today con- victed of a serious crime if he is innocent.' This proposition is, of course, demonstrably false if for no other reason than the occasional 'pardons' by which the Crown itself recognises that a mistake has been proved, and Mr. Fielding later on qualifies his statement : `. . there is no reasonable ground for thinking that persons have been wrongfully convicted in England in recent times—except very occasionally and in very ex-
ceptional circumstances. . . If this is the thesis, it can fairly be said that nobody thinks otherwise, and against whom is the book aimed? Pre- sumably, against those who have used the possi- bility of error as an argument for the abolition of capital punishment (never a very strong argu- ment since such a risk is present in any human institution); they hardly merit a book in reply, except to answer the specific charges made, for example, in Hanged—and Innocent?, a work which, right or wrong, deserves a much more detailed examination than the feeble comments it receives from Mr. Fielding. Of the Evans case he actually says, 'All the facts were before the jury' and 'But for an extraordinary coincidence nothing more would have been heard of it.'
One can agree with Mr. Fielding that 'the system of criminal justice founded upon the common law of England is in very little need of alteration' without thinking that it needs the support of a book containing such jewels as `few people will be greatly disturbed by hearing
that someone has been wrongly sentenced to eighteen months for burglary, especially if he was not otherwise a person of good character.' That `especially' is especially revealing.
ROBERT LINDLEY
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