Historic Legal Puzzles.
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HISTORIC LEGAL PUZZLES. THE laws of civilized nations, says a writer in the "San Francisco Chronicle," at times give rise to queer legal problems. Law, as defined by an old writer, is " the perfection of human reason." In a multitude of puzzling cases, however, much reasoning of a corrollary sort has been required to make the " perfect reason " of the abstract law fit a stated case. In the entire range of the law no more puzzling question can arise than that as to the place where a criminal act is committed. The sensational Botkin murder trial furnished an instance of that sort. Law writers have quoted with approval the decision of Judge Carroll Cook holding that the fact of Mrs. Botkin's alleged victims having been poi soned in Delaware did not prevent a trial of the woman for murder in California. In the same opinion the judge held that MrsBotkin could not be extradited to Delaware for the reason that the accused woman never having been in Delaware could not, there fore, be treated as a " fugitive from justice" within the meaning of the extradition laws of the United States. A special California statute rendered it possible to try Mrs. Botkin in California without leaving room for doubt as to the legality of such a proceeding. The law in question provides that " all persons who commit in whole or in part any crime in this State " shall be " liable to punishment under the laws of this State." Under this statute, jurisdiction vested in the California courts, because of clear proof that the sending of the poisoned candies had been from this State. The legal puzzle in the Botkin case, which a happy law rendered easy of solution, was the repetition of similar questions which in other States have given rise to strange com plications. Taking the Botkin case as a
text, writers on the law have been ransack ing the legal archives of many courts, with the result of bringing to light much interest ing lore, bearing on the old question, " If John Doe stands on one side of a stream and shoots and kills Richard Roe standing on the other side of the stream, is the crime of murder committed on the side from which John shoots, or on the side where Richard falls dead?" The question becomes one of vast importance when it happens that the stream or other line dividing murderer and victim happens to be the imaginary line which separates independent legal jurisdictions. A most interesting problem of this sort, some years ago, engaged the attention of the courts of Georgia. A man named Simpson, standing in South Carolina, fired a pistol with felonious intent at a person who was in a boat, on water embraced within the ter ritorial limits of Georgia. The bullets went wide of the person at whom they were aimed and splashed in the water. It was held by the courts that the defendant was guilty of an assault with intent to murder in Georgia, "Because," said the judge, " the balls did strike the water of the river in close proxim ity to him (the prosecuting witness) within this State, and it is therefore, certain that they took effect in Georgia." For the purposes of the case the judge held further that the defendant, when he fired the shots, was constructively in the State of Georgia. This holding was upon a theory of the law that where one puts in force an agency for the commission of crime, he, in legal contemplation, accompanies the same to the places where it becomes effec tual. The same theory applied to the Botkin case would have made the sender of the poisoned candy accompany the package to Delaware and become constructively, and for
