JB/051/002/001

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PROCEDURE EVIDENCE. Number required.

The first care ought to be to secure the integrity
and indifference of the Judge: this being performed, in to the degree in which it is possible to be may even in which it actually has been performed under our own Laws any evidence however slight may
be admitted to warrant, tho so that it do not
compel [a] conviction.

Those Laws which like the Civil for the same purpose of protecting
innocence have adopted the expedient
of limiting on the side of diminution the number
of witnesses, have adopted an expedient which
in the first place is not near so efficacious;
in the next place is attended with
very serious inconvenience unknown to the other: from which the other is exempt
Many have been the There are occasions instances on which one may might have had any number of ocular witnesses of facts that never happen'd. It is not any number, of these witnesses much less such a
number as can be required under the expectation
of one criminal in fifty's being brought
to punishment, that can ensure the Moral
much less the logical verity of their testimony

And to require a certain number as necessary
to support a conviction, that is, to say, that
with any less number conviction shall not take
place, is to establish an impunity allowance in favour of all crimes
perpetrated in the presence of fewer persons than

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the number of witnesses required.

Society Under a strict adherence to such a
rule if universally known and understood,
society could scarce subsist: tho' the number requir'd were no more than two, some since if the
various crimes that are committed fewer probably nay even of those
which are punished, many fewer probably are committed
in the presence of more than one
witness. [not being an accomplice] than of one
only.

The truth is, fact will I believe be found to be that this rule, howsoever recognized
in words, has not in any nation, because
it could not have been adhered to. The rule therefore in those nations is not so total as upon first consideration it would appear that is believed to be: but it is not so total, only because it is not observed [Departures Violations
from, if exceptions to it, under the name of modifications
& additions have been adopted received established]

It has been violated & departed from under the
pretence of modifying: and having no other than
a nominal verbal existence, has not never made it's way
as if it existed in reality really existing to the apprehensions of
the people.

Identifier: | JB/051/002/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 51.
Date_1		Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	051	Main Headings	evidence; procedure code
Folio number	002	Info in main headings field	procedure evidence: number required
Image	001	Titles
Category	text sheet	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks	l v g
Marginals		Paper Producer	caroline vernon
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year
Notes public		ID Number	16167
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