Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 339, January, 1844 by Various
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page 24 of 314 (07%)
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warrant is delivered to the officer, who is bound to obey the command
which it contains. It would seem, however, that, as was done in a recent case in Ireland, it is sufficient if the appearance of the accused be virtually secured, even without the intervention of an actual arrest. When the delinquent appears, in consequence of this process, before the authorities, they are bound immediately to examine into the circumstances of the alleged crime; and they are to take down in writing the examinations of the witnesses offered in support of the charge. If the evidence is defective, and grave suspicion should attach to the prisoner, he may be remanded, in order that fresh evidence may be procured; or the magistrate, if the case be surrounded with doubt and difficulty, may adjourn it for a reasonable time, in order to consider his final decision. The accused must also be examined, but not upon oath; and his examination also must be taken down in writing, and may be given in evidence against him at the trial; for although the maxim of the common law is "_nemo tenebitur prodere seipsum_," the legislature, as long ago as the year 1555, directed that, in cases of felony, the examination of the prisoner should be taken; which provision has recently been extended to misdemeanours also. Care must be taken that his examination should not even _appear_ to have been taken on oath; for in a very recent case, in which _all_ the examinations were contained upon one sheet of paper, and under one general heading--from which they all purported to have been taken upon oath, the prisoner's admission of his guilt contained in that examination, was excluded on the trial, and the rest of the evidence being slight, he was accordingly acquitted. Now, if upon the enquiry thus instituted, and thus conducted, it appears, either that no such crime was committed, or that the suspicion |
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