Fact of the Case
Woolmington, a labourer married one Kathleen Woolmington in 1934. Three months after his marriage, his wife left him to live her mother. On December 10 Woolmington stole a double-barreled shotgun and cartridges from his employer, sawed off the barrel, throwing it into a brook, and then bicycled over to his mother-in-law’s house where he shot and killed Violet. He was arrested on January 23 the following year and charged with the willful murder of his wife.
In Woolmington’s defense, he claimed he had no intention of killing his wife. He wanted to win her back so he planned to scare her by threatening to kill himself if she did not come back. While questioning her about returning, he attempted to show her the gun that he was to use to kill himself. By accident, the gun went off shooting Kathleen in the heart.
Issues
Whether the conviction be quashed on the grounds that the judge said it was for the jury to decide whether Woolmington had proved that the evidence was in his favour?
Ratio Decidendi
Burden of Proof: Subject to some exceptions, it is always for the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the crime in question. Common exceptions are the defense of insanity, which the defendant has the legal burden of proving, and where Parliament expressly wills to the contrary.
At the Bristol Assizes, Swift J ruled that the case was so strong against Woolmington that the burden of proof was on him to show that the shooting was accidental. At trial the jury deliberated for 69 minutes. On February 14, 1935 Woolmington was convicted and sentenced to death.
On appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal, Woolmington argued that the trial judge misdirected the jury. Lord Justice Avory refused leave to appeal, relying on a passage of Foster’s Crown Law (1762):
“In every charge of murder, the fact of killing being first proved, all the circumstances of accident, necessity, or infirmity are to be satisfactorily proved by the prisoner, unless they arise out of the evidence produced against him; for the law presumeth the fact to have been founded in malice, until the contrary appeareth. And very right it is that the law should so presume. The defendant in this instance standeth upon just the same foot that every other defendant doth: the matters tending to justify, excuse, or alleviate, must appear in evidence before he can avail himself of them.”
The Attorney-General (Sir Thomas Inskip) then gave his fiat allowing the case to be appealed to the House of Lords. The issue brought to the House of Lords was whether the statement of law in Foster’s Crown Law was correct when it said that if a death occurred, it is presumed to be murder unless proved otherwise.
Delivering the judgment for a unanimous Court, Lord Sankey made his famous “Golden thread” speech:
“Throughout the web of the English Criminal Law one golden thread is always to be seen that it is the duty of the prosecution to prove the prisoner’s guilt subject to… the defense of insanity and subject also to any statutory exception. If, at the end of and on the whole of the case, there is a reasonable doubt, created by the evidence given by either the prosecution or the prisoner… the prosecution has not made out the case and the prisoner is entitled to an acquittal. No matter what the charge or where the trial, the principle that the prosecution must prove the guilt of the prisoner is part of the common law of England and no attempt to whittle it down can be entertained.”
The conviction was quashed, and Woolmington was acquitted.
BY: RESOLUTION LAW FIRM
