CRIMINAL PROCEDURE (W/CD)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1879 edition. Excerpt: ...did not understand Mr. Wickham as saying that the accused did levy war. He denied it. He does not say that he levied war at all; but that at common law he who counsels or procures a war to be levied by another is in the nature of an accessory; that the whole doctrine of accessories is a creature of the common law, which is not in force; and that it is impossible that the creature can exist without the creator; but if the common law were in force with the doctrine of accessories, then he must be proceeded against as guilty of accessorial treason. Mr.' Hay.--Being indisposed, I did not sufficiently attend to be able to understand the whole of Mr. Wickham's argument. I judge the part which I did not understand by that which I did. But as he said that if the accused were guilty as a principal in the treason, he was so in the second degree, I had a right to consider it as an explicit admission that he did levy war, not in the first, but second degree. Chief. 7ustice.--He says that if he be a principal at all he is a principal in the second degree; not by the principles of the constitution, but by the common law; that it is an accessorial offence. This is the idea which I have of his argument, and wish to present to you. Mr. Hay.--It occurred to my mind at the time that the argument used by Mr. Wickham amounted to a surrender of the question; and I am still disposed to believe, though I am not sure, that my commentary on his argument was correct. They themselves have placed it on accessorial ground, though there are no accessories in treason. As they admit that there is no common law to which accessories are incidental, it was but a fair inference from the gentleman's position, that he levied war in the second degree; and if he levied it...