JB/035/043/002

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Ob/.
Juries

Even this would not do for every case. In many cases
it is impossible to form a tolerable judgment of the
veracity of a witness upon a single examination. When
he is sure there will be but one examination as in the
English practice, perjury plays a most advantageous
game. Look at the Old Bailey trials: one of the most
common defenses is an what is called an alibi.
A man who has committed a robbery near London
brings a couple of witnesses who swear he was at their company
at the time at Windsor. Nothing is more difficult to disprove by mere self-contradiction -examination than such evidence:
for the two witnesses were really together, and
occupied as they say. Their memory promises them, with
the readiness that belongs to that faculty, forms in them all the real
incidents: all they have to draw upon their invention
for, is the single circumstance of their friend: being
with them. Go to work upon the ground they have
furnished in that examination, and by the examination
of other unimpeachable witnesses you discover their deceit find out
you may make the deceit as clear as noon day. to the great encouragement of perjury that staple commodity of English the Church and of the law of England.The One story is good, says
a familiar proverb one story is good till another
is told. As the worst story that is told on the day of
an English trial can have no other told after it, the
worst story by that means becomes frequently good for ever.

This supplemental investigation you may can carry
on at any time before a Judge, but you can not
carry it on before a Jury. Here even the conclaves
would not serve. For you can not keep a Jury shut up
in their conclave while you are hunting up and down the
country, pursuing the clue of evidence: and when once let out
if you get them in again they are no longer a Jury.

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Identifier: | JB/035/043/002 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 35.
Date_1		Marginal Summary Numbering	25
Box	035	Main Headings	constitutional code; evidence; procedure code
Folio number	043	Info in main headings field
Image	002	Titles
Category	text sheet	Number of Pages	4
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	f7 / f8 / f13 / f14
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks	[[watermarks::l munn [britannia with shield emblem]]]
Marginals	jeremy bentham	Paper Producer	benjamin constant
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year
Notes public		ID Number	10636
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