19 



ESSAY ON THE 

 RATIONALE OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE. 



No. II. 



By Williaji Wills, Esq. 



In a former Essay on Circumstantial Evidence,* it was stated to 

 be a cardinal rule of jurisprudence to require direct proof of tlie cor- 

 pus delicti. In the present essay I purpose to investigate the rea- 

 son and illustrate the propriety of this rule. 



Every allegation of legal crime involves the establishment of two 

 separate propositions ; namely, that an act has been committed 

 from which legal responsibility arises, and that such act has been 

 committed by a particular individual. Such a complication of diffi- 

 culties often attends the proof of crime, and so many cases have oc- 

 curred of conviction of alleged offences which were never committed, 

 that it is a sound rule of legal procedure, derived to us from the 

 Romans, those great lights in all that relates to the principles of 

 jurisprudence, to require express and unequivocal proof of the cor- 

 pus delicti before it is permitted to adduce evidence tending to in- 

 culpate any particular person. 



If it be objected that rigorous proof of the corpus delicti is some- 

 times unattainable, and that the effect of exacting it must be that 

 crimes will occasionally pass unpunished, it must be admitted that 

 such may possibly be the result. But it is answered that where 

 there is no proof, or, which is the same thing, no sufficient jiroof, of 

 crime, there can be no legal guilt. Considerations of expediency 

 can never supersede the immutable obligations of justice, and occa- 

 sional impunity of crime is an evil of far less magnitude than the 

 punishment of the innocent. Such considerations of mistaken po- 

 licy led the civilians to adopt that cruel and execrable maxim, " in 

 atrocissimis leviorcs conjccturae sufficiunt et licet judici jura trans- 

 grcdi ;" and when the plea of expediency is once permitted to influ- 

 ence judicial integrity, such is the logical and inevitable consequence. 

 The rule in question is so important in relation to cases of circum- 

 stantial evidence, that it will be expedient to illustrate its pertinency 

 and propriety at some length, and, for the sake of simplicity and 



• Anh; p. 177. 



