Part 5

All the other identifying witnesses called to give evidence as to his having been seen in the vicinity on days previous to the murder were taken down to the General Police Office when Slater returned from America to identify him. They were shown into one room together, and then separately taken into a room in the Police Office, where Slater was amongst about a dozen men, none of whom were like him. (Cunningham says she could see that the other men were policemen in plain clothes.) All these witnesses knew that Slater had arrived from America, and was in the room. They had all read his description in the newspapers, or had seen his photograph. They all, therefore, looked for, and had no difficulty in pointing out, a dark, foreign-looking man, with a somewhat peculiarly shaped nose. It is submitted that this is not identification evidence in the proper sense at all. Had these people been able to pick out, as their man, from amongst several others, a man whose description they only knew from what they had previously seen of him, unassisted by description, and unassisted by a photograph, the value of their evidence would have been entirely different.

Some Crown witnesses identified him as the man they had seen and talked to (Shipping Clerk, Porter, &c.), but they, of course, were able to do so. None of the identifying witnesses had ever spoken to him.

Identification evidence is a class of evidence which the law distrusts. The most famous authority is the case of Adolf Beck. Beck was, in 1896, sentenced to seven years’ penal servitude, on the evidence of ten women, who swore positively that he was a man whom they had each met on two occasions, and spent some time within their own houses, and who had defrauded them, and on the evidence of two policemen, who swore positively that Beck was the man who had been previously convicted of similar crimes, taken along with certain circumstantial evidence--that he was known to frequent a hotel on the notepaper of which one of the women had received a letter. Again, in 1904, Beck was convicted of similar crimes on similar evidence. It was subsequently demonstrated that Beck committed none of the crimes, but that a man bearing a general similarity to him was the criminal.

In the report issued by the Commission appointed to investigate the matter, consisting of Lord Collins, Sir Spencer Walpole, and Sir John Edge, the following passage occurs:--“Evidence of identity, upon personal impression, however bona fide, is of all classes of evidence the least to be relied upon, and, unless supported by other evidence, an unsafe basis for the verdict of a Jury.”

Now, the evidence in the Beck case was infinitely more overwhelming and consistent than in this case; and the report in the Beck case, and the report on which it followed, make it clear that on the evidence in this case the Jury had no right to bring in a verdict of “Guilty.”

A good deal was said by the learned Lord-Advocate to the Jury about Slater’s immoral character. It was not disputed that he was a gambler. It was also admitted that he had cohabited for about four years with Madame Antoine, who was of doubtful virtue, and who gave evidence. Yet the learned Lord-Advocate addressed the Jury to the effect that the prisoner “had followed a life which descended to the very depth of human degradation, for, by the universal judgment of mankind, the man who lived upon the proceeds of prostitution has sunk to the lowest depth, and all moral sense in him had been destroyed.” This he cited as proof of the disappearance of an obstacle which had previously been in his way, viz:--Whether it was conceivable that such a man as Slater could commit such an inhumanly brutal crime. The only evidence on that point was that of Cameron, Slater’s friend, who, in cross-examination, said he had heard that Slater lived on the earnings of prostitution, but who did not say he knew. The Jury were distinctly told by the Lord-Advocate, and by the prisoner’s Counsel, and by the Judge, to banish from their minds anything they had heard regarding the man’s character; but they had previously heard all about it, and the Memorialist feels strongly that they were evidently unable to do so.

Public feeling is also very strong on the point that the question of Slater’s character should never have been brought before the Jury.

The Memorialist thinks it is only fair to prisoner to point out that he was all along anxious to give evidence on his own behalf. He was advised by his Counsel not to do so, but not from any knowledge of guilt. He had undergone the strain of a four days’ trial. He speaks rather broken English--although quite intelligibly--with a foreign accent, and he had been in custody since January.

Apart from what has been set forth above, your Memorialist begs to draw attention to the fact that on the Crown list of witnesses is the name of a witness, Miss Agnes Brown (No. 46). This lady is 30 years of age, and a very intelligent school teacher. Your Memorialist is informed that she told the Police and Procurator-Fiscal that on the night of the murder, about ten minutes past seven o’clock, two men in company rushed along West Princes Street from the direction of Miss Gilchrist’s house, and passed close to her at the corner of West Princes Street and West Cumberland Street; that one of them was dressed in a blue Melton coat with a dark velvet collar, black boots, and without a hat; that both men ran past the opening of West Cumberland Street, straight on along West Princes Street, crossed West Princes Street, and ran down Rupert Street, a street further west, and opening off the opposite side of West Princes Street. Your Memorialist understands that, in the identification proceedings before referred to, this witness pointed out Slater as the man in the Melton coat, as she thought. This witness’s evidence is thus in sharp contradiction on material points to that of the message girl Barrowman (who had only a momentary glance at the man), but upon whose evidence so much weight has evidently been laid, and who says that Slater was dressed in a light coat, a Donegal hat, and brown boots, was alone, and ran down West Cumberland Street.

Your Memorialist respectfully submits that this illustrates the danger of convicting a man upon the kind of evidence given in this case. Miss Brown was in attendance at the trial, but was not called as a witness. Even on the evidence led, the votes of two more jurymen in his favour would have liberated the prisoner. In England the probability is that a conviction would never have been obtained.

Your Memorialist is authorised to state that Slater’s Counsel agree that the evidence did not justify the conviction.

Your Memorialist, who has all along acted as Slater’s Solicitor since he was brought back from America after the Extradition Proceedings, and who has had very many interviews with Slater, begs respectfully to state his absolute belief in Slater’s innocence.

May it therefore please the Right Honourable the Secretary of State for Scotland to take this Memorial into his most favourable consideration, and thereafter to advise his Most Gracious Majesty to exercise his royal prerogative to the effect of commuting the sentence passed upon the prisoner, or to do otherwise as in the circumstances may seem just.

And your Memorialist will ever pray.

EWING SPIERS, 190 West George Street, Glasgow, Oscar Slater’s Solicitor.

Dated this seventeenth day of May, One thousand nine hundred and nine.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

The cover image for this eBook was created by the transcriber using the original cover and is entered into the public domain.