By innocent person to escape suspicion. 2. Malicious forgery of real evidence. raises a strong presumption of larceny, he tells us of a case tried, as he says, before a very learned and wary judge, where a man was convicted and executed for horse stealing on the strength of his having been found on the animal the day it was stolen, but whose innocence was afterwards made clear by the confession of the real thief; who acknowledged that, on finding himself closely pursued, he had requested the unfortunate man to walk the horse for him while he turned aside on a necessary occasion, and thus escaped (1). This species of forgery, however, is not confined to actual criminals. It sometimes happens that an innocent man, sensible that, though guiltless, appearances are against him, and not duly weighing the danger of being detected in clandestine attempts to stifle proof, endeavours to get rid of real evidence in such a way as to avert suspicion from himself, or even turn it on some one else. An extremely apt illustration of this is to be found in the Arabian Nights' Entertainments (m); where the body of a man who had died by accident in the house of a neighbour, was conveyed by him, under the apprehension of suspicion of murder in the event of the corpse being found in his house, into the house of another neighbour, who, finding it there, and acting under the influence of a similar apprehension, in like manner transmitted it to a third, who, in his turn, shifted the possession of the corpse to a fourth, with whom it was found by the officers of justice. § 200. 2. The forgery of real evidence may have been effected with the malicious purpose of bringing down (1) 2 Hale, P. C. 289. A similar conviction occurred in 1827, but the fatal result was averted; R. v. Gill, Wills on Circumst. Evid. 54, 3rd Ed. See also the case of John Jennings, Theor. of Presumptive Proof, App. case 1; and that of Du Moulin, Chambers' Edinb. Journ. for Oct. 28, 1837. (m) 3 Benth. Jud. Ev. 36. The story alluded to is the well known one of the little Hunchback. suffering on an innocent individual. The most obvious instance is to be found in a case probably of more frequent occurrence than is usually supposed; namely, where stolen goods are clandestinely deposited in the house, room, or box of an innocent person, with the view of exciting a suspicion of larceny against him (n); and a suspicion of murder may be raised by secreting a bloody weapon in the like manner (o). In the case of Le Brun (p), who was accused of having murdered a lady of rank to whom he was servant, the officers of justice were charged by his advocates with having altered a common key, found in his possession, into a master key, in order to make it appear at the trial that he had a facility for committing the murder which he really did not possess. "Another remarkable example," says Mr. Arbuthnot, in the preface to his Reports of the Foujdaree Udalut of Madras (q), "is related in a Report recently published on the Wellicade Jail at Colombo in Ceylon. A man named Sellapa Chitty, of the class termed Nattacotie, reported wealthy, and largely engaged in trade, charged his neighbour and rival in business with causing the death of a Malabar Cooly by burning and otherwise ill-treating him; whereas it was found that the man had died a natural death, and that the prisoner, together with a relative and servant, had (n) In the preface to Mr. Arbuthnot's Reports of the Court of Foujdaree Udalut of Madras, Madras, 1851, p. xlii. is the following passage:-"In the annals of criminal justice in this country instances of this species of forgery of real evidence are far from uncommon; it being a matter of notoriety that the clandestine placing of articles in the houses of accused persons, with a view to facilitate their conviction of a crime charged, is frequently resorted to by the native officers of police; while the production by the police from the houses of accused persons of articles, which are really their property, but are alleged to have been obtained by theft or robbery, is still more common." (0) Theory of Presumptive Proof, App. case 10. (p) 3 Benth. Jud. Ev. 60. (9) pp. xli. xlii. applied fire to several parts of the body, and deposited it on the premises of the accused; after which he gave notice to the police, and charged the innocent party with the murder. The case seemed clear, and the accused would have been tried on the capital charge, had not the medical gentleman on the inquest observed the unusual appearance of the burnt parts, and finally discovered that the injuries had all been inflicted on the body after death." The numerous cases that have occurred of persons inflicting wounds, often of a very serious nature, on themselves, with the view of attaining some end (r), and occasionally for the purpose of enabling them to accuse hated individuals (s), should induce tribunals to be more on their guard against the forgery of real evidence than they commonly are. And, as though no limit could be imposed to human wickedness, it is said that even suicide has been committed with a like view (t). The following instance of this kind of forgery is likely to be resorted to in countries where the legitimate principles of evidence are either not well understood, or not duly observed. The artifice alluded to is that of sending to the person whom it is desired to injure letters, in which the mode either of committing some crime is discussed, or containing allusion to a supposed crime already committed, and then procuring his arrest under such circumstances that the document may be found in his possession: e. g. "On such an occasion" (naming it), "my dear friend, you failed in (r) See Tayl. Med. Jurispr. 254 et seq., 4th Ed.; Beck's Med. Jurispr. 32 et seq., 7th Ed. (s) Tayl. in loc. cit. In the Times Newspaper for January 30, 1847, will be found the case of a girl at Reading who, enraged against a man for having ceased to live with her, cut her throat severely, and then charged him with having attempted to murder her. (4) We have somewhere read a case of that kind: and believe also that the French Jacobins were accused of having slain, with his consent, one of their number, in order to throw on the Royalists the imputation of having murdered him as a political enemy. your enterprize;" an enterprize (describing it by allusion) of theft, robbery, murder, treason: "on such a day, do so and so, and you will succeed (u)." "In this way," observes Bentham, "so far as possession of criminative written evidence amounts to crimination, it is in the power of any one man to make circumstantial evidence of criminality in any shape, against any other (x).” §201. It sometimes happens that real evidence is forged with the double motive of self-exculpation and of inducing suspicion on a hated individual (y). And, lastly, it is to be observed, that this species of forgery may be accomplished by force as well as by fraud: e. g. three men unite in a conspiracy against an innocent person; one lays hold of his hands, another puts into his pocket an article of stolen property, which the third, running up as if by accident during the scuffle, finds there and denounces him to justice as a thief (z). for moral end. § 202. 3. Forgery of real evidence committed either 3. In sport, or in sport or with some moral end in view. As an instance of this may be cited the story of the patriarch Joseph, who, with a view of creating alarm and remorse in the minds of his guilty brothers for their conduct towards him in early life, caused a silver cup to be privately hid in one of their sacks, and after they had gone some distance on their journey, had them arrested as thieves and brought back (a). the result of § 203. 3°. The other infirmative hypothesis affecting 3°. Appearance real evidence remains to be noticed; namely, that the lawful action. apparently criminative fact may have been created by the (u) 3 Benth. Jud. Ev. 44. (1) Id. (y) See the case of the Flemish parson in 5 Causes Célèbres, 442, Ed. Richer, Amsterd. 1773. (2) 3 Benth. Jud. Ev. 39. Real evidence fallacious as to accused in the furtherance of some lawful, or even laudable, design. This is best exemplified by those cases of larceny where stolen property is found in the possession of a person who, knowing or suspecting it to have been stolen, has taken possession of it with the view of either seeking out the true owner in order to restore it, or of bringing the thief to justice, but, before this can be accomplished, becomes himself the object of suspicion, in consequence either of the stolen goods being seen in his possession, or of false information being laid against him (b). In cases of suspected murder, also, stains of blood may have been produced by many causes (c), e. g. an accidental bleeding from the nose (d), a surgical operation (e), the slaughter of an animal, &c. § 204. Real evidence, while truly indicative of guilt quality of crime. in general, may be fallacious as to the species and quality of the crime. The recent possession of stolen property, for instance, is deemed presumptive evidence of larceny, not of the accused having received the goods with a guilty knowledge of their having been stolen (ƒ); and there can be little doubt that many persons have been convicted and punished for the former offence (b) The author has an impres- (c) Quintil. lib. 15, cap. 12. (e) In the case of William 1721 for the supposed murder of his daughter who had committed suicide, one of the facts which pressed against him was that his shirt was bloody, which was however caused by his having bled himself some days before, and the bandage becoming untied. Theory of Pres. Proof, App. case 8. (f) R. v. Densley, 6 C. & P. 399; R. v. Oddy, 2 Den. C. C. 273, per Alderson, B. |