Is Kosminski the man really viable?

[Errata]

You are really suggesting that is a reasonable explanation of her comment?

No, I think it's a possible explanation. Not knowing the travels of the book in question, I can't really say how reasonable it is. But for example: Let's say Swanson doesn't talk about the suspect. Not to anyone. Which would be appropriate and seemingly in character. Upon his death, his child (or one of his children) inherits the Anderson book with the Marginalia. Upon reading it, he comes away with "Wow. Dad knew who this guy was" and tells his siblings, wife, kids, whoever. And this person either respects his father's wishes that the suspect remain unknown, or never particularly puts together the idea that because he has read this, he too knows who the suspect is. So now the fact that grand dad knew who the suspect was, etc. is generally known in the family, but not generally known in the populace, which we know was not the case.

She said it was "generally known" that her grandfather knew who it was, but the witness wouldn't identify him for ethical reasons. But it wasn't generally known. It was generally know that Queen Victoria's husband had died. It was generally known that syphilis was a sexually transmitted disease. It was generally known that the world was round. I don't think Swanson ever in his life showed up in anything "generally known". So "generally known to his family seems a more logical interpretation of that statement. But how they came to find out is a mystery. We don't know if he told his family, we don't know if he bragged about it when in his cups, we don't know if the marginalia clued them in, or some other document never seen. We don't know.

[RivkahChaya]

Was that the rule? Because if it was Kosminski, he had been institutionalized previously, which might at least cause some doubts.

There's a difference between being legally insane, and being mentally ill, and that was true even in 1888. To be legally insane, you had to be judged so, and for the issue to come up, you had to commit some kind of crime. If Kosminski really did threaten-- who was it, his sister?-- a relative with a knife, that may have precipitated a commitment. Or his "crime" could have been vagrancy, or something. In the first case, a doctor could judge him no longer a threat, and in the second, a family member could promise to look after him.

The "ethical dilemma" was something I suspect was blown out of proportion.

In the Mishnah (Sanhedrin 1:4), it is stated that in order for a person to receive the death sentence for a crime, there must be at least two witnesses, who must have witnessed the actual crime, and further, warned the person just before he commenced the crime, that it might merit a death sentence. (The intent is to discourage the death penalty from ever being carried out.)

The Talmud and Mishnah are silent on Jews testifying as witnesses in the courts of other countries, because for so many centuries, the Jews lived apart from gentiles. A Jew who was a recent immigrant, and knows Mishnah, but little about English law, other than murderers usually hang, is going to feel that he is in a very difficult spot.

First, it is unlikely that the police would tell him what other witnesses have said, so as not to taint his testimony, and he may not know whether he is the sole witness, but he may think he is. Second, since he did not know what he was seeing until the police came and asked him questions later, he could not fulfill the requirement to actually witness the crime, and to warn the person of the penalty.

It would not matter that the person being identified (I'll just say "Kosminski" from now on, for clarity) was Jewish. There is no special obligation to protect a Jew from punishment, when the Jew is in fact guilty. I have no idea what might have been in the witness's head though, but the idea of a Jew testifying in a gentile court may have been so foreign to him, that possibly he thought Kosminski would be handed over to a rabbinical court. That may sound crazy; however, in other countries, Jews were rarely permitted to testify as witnesses in criminal cases, for the defense or the prosecution, and it was an issue of swearability. Jews wouldn't swear on a Christian bible, and such an act was considered meaningless anyway. Occasionally, a medieval court would come up with a particularly humiliating way to swear in a Jew, so maybe the witness was worried about something like that happening to him, and that's why he didn't want to testify.

It's a whole new world for him. He probably says he wants to consult his rabbi (in the same circumstances, I would), and after a translation, a couple of retellings, and a little speculation, it turned into "ethical dilemma," or "he won't testify against another Jew."

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

Generally accepted family folklore I would buy, but he did have the book outlining all of that in his house, so someone could have read it as opposed to heard it from Swanson himself.

You are really suggesting that is a reasonable explanation of her comment?

[Errata]

For all intents and purposes, he did.

I am curious as to what weight you give Mary Berkin's comments.

"It was general knowledge that my grandfather knew the name of the killer, and that there was no evidence except from a Jewish man who would not give evidence for ethical reasons."

How does one spin the Marginalia and her comments into Swanson merely stating Anderson's suspect??

As as aside, I find her comment about "ethical reasons" interesting, as at first glance it appears somewhat sympathetic.

Well, I might quibble with her saying that "it was general knowledge" that her grandfather knew the name of the suspect. If it had been general knowledge, someone would have mentioned it to a reporter friend during a tennis game or something and the man would have been hounded to death. Generally accepted family folklore I would buy, but he did have the book outlining all of that in his house, so someone could have read it as opposed to heard it from Swanson himself.

It's funny, because "ethical reasons" and "moral reasons" are two different things entirely, though it is not perhaps a distinction one might make in a casual comment. To me, "I won't condemn another Jew to death" is moral but not ethical, but "I'm only 99.9% sure that's the guy, and I really don't want to screw this up" is ethical, though perhaps not the most moral route.

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

This will be my last post.I resent being labled as having an axe to grind,as was stated yesterday.As i see no evidence presented by the person that made that accusation,and nothing from admin that diminishe s that accusation,I must accept that they agree with it.

I have never read a post by you that didn't have a strong anti-police brass bias. You are - by your own words - one of the "conspiracy' buffs. The evidence is your posts.

A blanket of silence,a conspiracy perhaps?What of the amount of reporting that would have ensued.The paperwork.Gone I suppose ,like all the other documentary information,that one would expect to be filed.Lost or stolen,we shall be assured.Maybe,but maybe it never existed,because like all the other claims,the claim of being watched night and day has no foundation in fact.

Sure. Absolutely. Thanks for explaining this all to us. The paperwork never existed. Why did we not realize this earlier? I mean, it's not like bureaucracies to generate paperwork.

Files got tossed, "harry" (sic). Pulped. Thrown away. Rumbelow has described the process. How much stuff did he singlehandedly rescue??

To add to my remarks yesterday of the uselessness of a surveilance,one may ask what such a surveilance could achieve

I reject completely the idea that police 'surveilance' (sic) of a suspect would have been useless.

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

Swanson + Berkin = Kosminski

I trust if Swanson truly believed that, he would have wrote that..

For all intents and purposes, he did.

I am curious as to what weight you give Mary Berkin's comments.

"It was general knowledge that my grandfather knew the name of the killer, and that there was no evidence except from a Jewish man who would not give evidence for ethical reasons."

How does one spin the Marginalia and her comments into Swanson merely stating Anderson's suspect??

As as aside, I find her comment about "ethical reasons" interesting, as at first glance it appears somewhat sympathetic.

[harry]

There is and was a defence against defamation,and it was/is if the person making the libel or slander,could prove his/her case.Obviously Anderson,in refraining from naming anyone because of a fear of being sued,did so because there was no proof.To add to my remarks yesterday of the uselessness of a surveilance,one may ask what such a surveilance could achieve.Kosminski was already considered to be the Ripper,so collecting information on that score was negative.The surveilance could not curtail his movements,he was free to roam the streets at will.It would be impossible to stop him killing,because there was nothing preventing him being in the company of a woman.The police did not need to collect information as to where he lived,they already knew.I could go on but I believe posters get the picture.As to the manpower required,well being as it was a day and night operation,quite a number, if it was to be done properly,and all these personnel would be briefed on the neccessity of the surveilance,the reasons for it.And none of these officers ever confided to anyone else?A blanket of silence,a conspiracy perhaps?What of the amount of reporting that would have ensued.The paperwork.Gone I suppose ,like all the other documentary
information,that one would expect to be filed.Lost or stolen,we shall be assured.Maybe,but maybe it never existed,because like all the other claims,the claim of being watched night and day has no foundation in fact.
This will be my last post.I resent being labled as having an axe to grind,as was stated yesterday.As i see no evidence presented by the person that made that accusation,and nothing from admin that diminishe s that accusation,I must accept that they agree with it.

[Errata]

Kosminski was at liberty at the time, Colin, so was not legally insane. Hence he could have been charged with one or more of the murders.

Was that the rule? Because if it was Kosminski, he had been institutionalized previously, which might at least cause some doubts. And I've always been a little fuzzy on the regaining competency part. He is certified insane to get put into an asylum, but I've never heard of some process that reverses the certification. I know the modern US system, but it's different. So does a doctor go before a judge and have him sign a paper saying the guy is sane again? And do you get that piece of paper if you are released into the custody of family, as opposed to having been "cured"?

[Wickerman]

Howsabout "Kosminski was our suspect." ?

I trust if Swanson truly believed that, he would have wrote that..


...

[Errata]

I'm still stuck on this Brighton thing, which I'm trying to convince myself is because I was in Brighton Beach Memoirs an age ago...

But it did prompt a question. Swanson said that the suspect was sent there "by us with great difficulty". Do we know he was sent from London? I think everyone agrees Seaside Home is an odd choice, even for a bit of privacy. But what if the suspect was elsewhere? So when they were setting this up they said "Our guy is in Hampshire (or some such), so we need to bring our witness to place where the cops in Hampshire are willing to travel to. Brighton seems a neutral place, and we have a Seaside Home there so our boys won't have to stay in a hotel" An arrangement which I think would be pretty difficult, but would still make more sense than two sets of London cops and two London citizens going to Brighton for an ID that could have taken place in a park somewhere, or some pensioner's living room. Is that possible?

[Garry Wroe]

''We know we can't prosecute him, but we still need to know if it was him or not. We'll just discreetly arrange a confrontation away from prying eyes. It won't be useable in evidence, but at least we'll be able to confirm if we've got the right man or not".

Kosminski was at liberty at the time, Colin, so was not legally insane. Hence he could have been charged with one or more of the murders.

[RivkahChaya]

See this is what I'm talking about. Also libel implies a lie, and there was no need to lie.

This is true. Truth is always a defense against libel. When you sue someone for libel, you have to prove what they said was false, and also that it was damaging. The latter is the reason most celebrities don't pursue libel suits against every tabloid that prints rumors, misleading headlines, and wholly invented stories.

There would not have been any need for the police to name a suspect, at any rate, I don't think. If they had said "We have evidence we believe would lead to a conviction, but due to special circumstances, we cannot go to trial. However, the suspect is no longer a threat to anyone." That could mean he's dead. That could mean he's incapacitated by illness. That could mean he is in prison in another country. And you can see why Scotland Yard would want to be vague, so there would be attempts at vigilantism, or retaliation against his family.

However, as soon as the police issued a statement like that, you can bet that reporters would be combing through past dockets in neighboring jurisdictions, to find out if someone recently sentenced to death, or a very long term, had been in London during the Ripper murders; looking as commitments to asylums, looking through death records of people living in London, trying to figure out who the police no longer considered a threat.

The reporters will probably come up with Kosminski's name, among others, and it would not be libel to say that he fit the parameters laid out by the police, even if he is still alive. I don't think commitments to asylums were confidential like they are now, and at any rate, they are public record even now, if the commitment is ordered by a judge.

The fact that nothing like that ever did happen, make me think that the idea that the police knew beyond a reasonable doubt who JTR was, is unlikely.

At best, the police may have had reason to believe he had moved on, and some may have had a strong gut feeling that he was dead or confined some place, but I don't think the police really had the kind of information that would have allowed them, to go to trial, except for some technicality.

[robhouse]

My point was that I think the police may have released false information—that the Ripper was dead—specifically to "let people know they could rest easy," while at the same time keeping the identity of their top suspect under wraps.

RH

[Errata]

This is a very interesting observation... indeed, I have been ruminating on this possibility for some time now. I personally think that just such a thing may have happened. In other words, if we look at some of the various statements the police did release over the years, they seem to have said, to the press for example, that the Ripper's identity was known and he died.

This was going to be a subject of an article (perhaps), but I never got around to writing it.

RH

See this is what I'm talking about. Also libel implies a lie, and there was no need to lie. "Aaron Kosminski was identified by a witness, but we were unable to prosecute. We kept him under observation during which time there were no murders, until he was institutionalized, and he will remain in an asylum for the rest of his life. We are not pursuing other leads." It's all factual information, and if you disclose a lack of evidence, you confirm that it is an opinion, but one that was felt strongly enough that no one felt the need to investigate further. I mean, it's not a nice thing to do. But I think it would be technically legal, and probably kinder to the populace as a whole.

I think my favorite example was some civil rights activist threw himself on his sword and named a bunch of violent white supremacists they couldn't nail to the wall. He got fired, but the response by his organization was "It is not our policy to disclose the names of men possibly facing prosecution for such crimes. He said something he should not have said" Not that it was wrong, or that what he said was untrue. Essentially they said "Yes that's true, but he shouldn't have told you people". Which I love.

[robhouse]

If it had been 22 months, and people were still feeling alarmed, there was public interest in letting people know they could rest easy. Assuming the evidence was incontrovertible.

This is a very interesting observation... indeed, I have been ruminating on this possibility for some time now. I personally think that just such a thing may have happened. In other words, if we look at some of the various statements the police did release over the years, they seem to have said, to the press for example, that the Ripper's identity was known and he died.

This was going to be a subject of an article (perhaps), but I never got around to writing it.

RH