People (Attorney General) v Cadden

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 01 January 1957
• Date: 01 January 1957
• Court: Court of Criminal Appeal

C.C.A.

The People (Attorney General)

and

Cadden

Death resulting from felonious act - Circumstantial evidence - Charge as to its nature and effect - Practice - Dock identification Considered as a ground for discharging a jury - Right of prosecution or judge to ask questions of a State witness of which the defence have no notice.

Held: 1. The passage in Sandes' "Criminal Law and Procedure" (1951 Edition) 177, is an unexceptionable statement of the principle which a jury should have in mind when considering their verdict in a case depending wholly on circumstantial evidence. This statement is as follows:—"The testimony of a witness who actually saw the accused person kill the deceased is direct evidence, but if the deceased had died of poisoning the pecuniary embarrassment of the prisoner, his buying poison and attempting to avoid an inquest and other such facts would be relevant as circumstantial or indirect evidence. Circumstantial evidence is very often the best evidence that the nature of the case permits of. It is evidence of surrounding circumstances which by undesigned coincidence is capable of proving a proposition with the accuracy of mathematics. It is no derogation of evidence to say that it is circumstantial. A jury may convict on purely circumstantial evidence but to do this they must be satisfied not only that the circumstances were consistent with the prisoner having committed the act but also that the facts were such as to be inconsistent with any other rational conclusion than that he was the guilty person."2. The course adopted by the trial Judge in the...