Is Mr Schwartz the equivalent of a Hasidic Hutchinson?

[The Good Michael]

Don and Dave,

When I read these inquest testimonies, I get the feeling that there is often posturing going on with the coroner playing the role of a upwardly mobile public official looking to further his career. Without going into specifics, there seems to be a lot of holes in the questioning, and the tone of the questioning takes center stage quite often. I believe some of the proceedings were detrimental to investigations, and that so much was left unasked that it was just a matter of going through the motions.

I assume that the appointment of coroner or deputy coroner was based upon political connections and not necessarily upon expertise. I also assume that there was no training for the position with regards to being able to conduct a good, sound investigation or inquiry, as a magistrate might have been able to do.

Are my thoughts correct about this? If so, this had to be a major hindrance to police investigation.

Also, upon finishing an inquest, was any power held by the coroner with regards to some sort of legal disposition toward witnesses?

Not the place for this, but it was the right time. Perhaps we can move it elsewhere if interest is sparked.

Cheers,

Mike

[Supe]

Mike,

Good questions, but my knowledge is mostly limited to reading the work of Dave, Robert and John so I wouldn't presume to give any answers. Since Dave weighed in earlier today let us hope that he will respond to your queries soon.

Are you there Dave?

Don.

[perrymason]

Hello all,

Forgive me, thats an interesting post by Dave, however I'm not seeing any relevance to the issue of why Schwartz might be absent from the formal proceedings in this instance.

It would seem his statement suggests an altercation with the deceased within minutes of her death just feet away from where it happens, and her assailant is described as confrontational with the witness. Im not sure what Dave meant by the LVP Inquests in this regard. Am I to assume that testimony like this if believed by the authorities would be suppressed to the extent it is completely absent from the formal records?

If its that important, then we must be missing all the vast documentation on how Schwartz is used as a witness or is working with police during and after the Inquest.

Arguably, the single best prospect for a Ripper suspect based on a witness sighting was Lawendes....and he is mentioned at the Inquest, and we are told they were working with him investigating it...and we do know they put him up in a hotel at some point to protect his identity while they worked with him.

What do we know about Israel?

That he gave a story, that in notation form it was supported by some senior authorities, that it is completely absent from the Inquest, and we know nothing of any special treatment or ongoing relationship with the authorities after his initial appearance in this story.

James Brown, a local and certainly not affiliated with the Club or the event that night, had a story too for 12:45am. His is told at the Inquest.

How does the above add up to Schwartz being believed and vital or important in any manner?

As I said early on, the only legitimate reason to suppress not only his complete story but his physical identity if not because he is disbelieved, is because it was important enough to keep secret.

Which seems more reasonable? With what is known. Is Schwartz the Jewish witness? Well, since his story appears in the murder least likely to have been a Ripper crime of all the Canonicals, and since Lawende's sighting catches a man with Kate who by the timing alone and by the actions taken almost must be the killer and very likely was the Ripper....I cant see how Israel can be considered to have been all that valuable.

And with the Stride Inquest recordings, I can see that he wasn't called to give his story at all, and James Brown was, and so was Lawende at Kates Inquest.

Best regards

[Dave O]

Hi Mike and Don,

Thanks for the kind word, Don. I don't claim expertise as that would be a very stupid and big-headed thing for me to do, and it would be wrong. But I have at least tried to study how inquests worked using as many sources as I can get my hands on. I've started a separate thread to answer you Mike, here http://forum.casebook.org/showpost.p...87&postcount=1

For the board in general: The point of this all this being, the relevance as Michael says, is if you're wondering why Schwartz was absent at this inquest, or wondering about the quality of medical evidence, or would like to know, I don't know, something simple and basic like HOW ONE OF OUR MAJOR SOURCES OF INFORMATION WORKED, then the English inquest should be studied just as the police should be studied, if only to dispose of some ideas or shed some light on a few things. Although you may find no ultimate answer, at least you will have an acquaintance with procedure and develop A BASIS FOR KNOWING WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT. I have provided some good sources above; I think they are now available online through google books. They're not as dry as you might think.

Dave

[perrymason]

Hi Dave,

The inference that you make is that in the LVP, Its possible that critical witness evidence gathered and likely investigated prior to a formal hearing of it by a Jury may well be omitted from any mention at the proceedings....for reasons other than precaution or clandestine tangential investigations.

Meaning,......it would not be unusual to have found that vital witness accounts were not presented with the physical evidence at the Inquest...even though in the possession of the authorities in this case for 3 weeks before the Inquest closes.

I respect your opinion, and Ill check your link, but as you can tell I am extremely skeptical that anything deemed vitally important and not withheld for reasons of further investigation would be omitted purposefully.....if believed as truthful and accurate.

Perhaps there is some evidence of this type of event happening via your link....well see.

Israel Schwartz's account would be vitally important, a man seen accosting a woman openly and then scaring the witness off within 14 minutes of her being found dead mere feet away would be a logical primary suspect in her death. Particularly this death, which has no Ripper characteristics or signatures present.

Best regards Dave

[perrymason]

Some interesting points from that Link to your thoughts about the Coroner Dave....

"For a coroner to withhold evidence or impose a verdict upon the jury was misconduct...."

"....you have the police investigation and then you have inquest, which is nothing more or less than the people’s open investigation, held by themselves and their appointed coroner, aided by the police and the testimony of witnesses and experts (of varied quality), using all their knowledge pooled together (even the jury was invited to use their own personal knowledge)..."

"I don’t really know how the police viewed the inquest—I wouldn’t be surprised if they saw it as wasting time with laymen when they could have been working. Perhaps it hindered the investigation (I don’t think it did) or there were times they were giving out too much information, but this was their system and there was a saying “Publicity is the soul of justice”.

Im not sure how this ties in with your inference that witness statements, if potentially important and fully believed by the Investigators....as it seems were both the case with Israel, may not have appeared at Inquests.

Seems to me you cite full disclosure as essential for the safety of the community, and that that would be the guideline.

Best regards Dave.

[Dave O]

Hi Michael,

No, forget about Schwartz for a moment. At this point I'm not even talking about him anymore. What I mean is that you need to do some research on inquest. Then you will be in a better position to decide some things for yourself, like whether it's so odd that William Wess was the first witness at the Stride inquest. No one can say why Schwartz wasn't at the inquest, but you can at least read up on procedure and have some citations to back up your assertions. When you're making an assessment of Blackwell's veracity, besides looking at newspaper accounts, maybe an examination of the different type of medical witnesses there were may help you.

It's not that I'm disagreeing with you, or know the answers myself. Listen, I've tried to study inquests for several years now, which is hardly a sufficient amount of time, but I've made an attempt at least. Stil I'm scratching my head about Schwartz. So it doesn't do to be too skeptical or dogmatic when you haven't studied how an inquest works at all. On what basis are you skeptical of anything? You don't have one; your own common sense won't do.

You see, you're making up your mind about my link before having read it, but my link isn't to do with Schwartz, which is why it's there and not here. It's background for The Good Michael.

Dave

[perrymason]

Dave,

I do get your interest in the process and the parameters of Inquests in the LVP, and Im sure that topic alone is worth a book or full dissertation at the least....but it is Israel Schwartz and his conspicuous absence from the formal "community" hearing on the evidence gathered to that date regarding the murder of Liz Stride that I am interested in here.

And I would think that to not present information that was taken prior to the Inquest, that was supported in memos by the investigators, and that was vitally important if true, placing the victim in a potentially precarious situation minutes before she was killed,....seems to indicate that they thought it would not assist the jurors or the Coroner in making a determination of whether this was a suicide or murder.

Since people were known to cut their own throats, ...(you may refer to the young man from Poplar who killed himself the day Mary was buried for one), and since Strides cut is predominant on one side of her neck only,...suicide had to be ruled out first. A witness that provided a potential killer must have been worthy to present.....if believed.

The only reason to exclude his remarks are for that reason,...if he was not believed,.. or some value they felt he might have as a "secret witness". Since there is nothing to suggest he was a suppressed witness, nor anything that suggests he was a witness that police kept silent about and protected, ....it doesnt leave many sound reasons on the table for his absence.

Best regards again Dave....and Happy Fathers Day to you.

[Dave O]

Hi Michael,

Im not sure how this ties in with your inference that witness statements, if potentially important and fully believed by the Investigators....as it seems were both the case with Israel, may not have appeared at Inquests.

I'm confused; I don't recall having made any such inference. I think this is an inference you've made about me, mistakenly.

My position is that one can study inquest procedure and make a little headway in the Schwartz debate, though not much. For example, you can read about oaths and see that religion or language would not have been an obstacle for them having him. You can study the role of coroner and know that the police had no power to instruct him on what witnesses to call (I would like to know a court where they do that). You can learn that while he had to satisfy the jury on the evidence so far as possible, he also had a discretion over who to summon (described in the law). He was independent of the police or the Home Office. You can learn about the role of the police as interested parties to the inquest, and learn something about how they interacted with the jury (see Tom Wescott's excellent citation of Sir Homewood Crawford at Eddowes).

The bottom line that I look at is Wynne Baxter's discretion at summoning witnesses. Descriptions and Lipski, if these were real concerns, can be excluded, but only with the jury's permission. Language and religion were no barrier. You may very well be correct that Baxter did not find Schwartz relevant, but we don't know. If in the end you find that Baxter didn't find him relevant, it's also quite possible that Baxter was mistaken to do so. He seems so interested in those descriptions of Stride and her man. What I wonder about is why he didn't leave Schwartz's relevance to the jury's discretion. As I said, the coroner summons the witness, the jury believes or doesn't believe the witness.

So, it doesn't quite make sense to me.

When I say that the coroner cannot withhold evidence from the jury, I mean that in the boundary of law, he must give the jury an opportunity for them to pose their own questions to any given witness. If there is a witness who says he has evidence, and the jury want to hear it, then the coroner ought to let that person speak. If you read the inquest accounts of the Ripper murders, you will see that the coroner defers to the jury upon the evidence, makes sure they're satisfied so far as it's possible to satisfy them. If you read of inquests that went up for High Court review in the 19th century, the question often revolves around whether the coroner inhibited the jury's ability to assess evidence.

Dave

[Chris]

Since there is nothing to suggest he was a suppressed witness, nor anything that suggests he was a witness that police kept silent about and protected, ....it doesnt leave many sound reasons on the table for his absence.

But of course there is the fact that although Lawende appeared at the Eddowes inquest, the most pertinent part of his testimony - the description of the man he saw - was suppressed at the request of the police (via the City Solicitor). In the same way, we know that the police did not for some time authorise the release to the press of the description given by Schwartz. These descriptions were not officially released until 19 October.

I have never understood why the police should want to suppress these descriptions, particularly as they authorised the circulation of the one given by P. C. Smith. Maybe an explanation of that might shed some light on Schwartz's absence from the inquest.

[Chris]

For example, you can read about oaths and see that religion or language would not have been an obstacle for them having him.

Of course I accept that Schwartz could have given evidence through an interpreter, so that there would have been no procedural obstacle. But I'm still not entirely convinced that his inability to speak English wouldn't have been seen as an obstacle in practical terrms.

[Dave O]

Hi Chris,

Do you mean, maybe they couldn't find an interpreter? I'd think, since they're moving fast anyway, they'd have just done the simple thing and had whoever the police used. Or if not him, Baxter spent his time constantly criss-crossing his district, traveling from inquest to inquest, and had been doing so for over a year and a half. I will bet that it wasn't unusual for him to hold 20 a week, (that is a Macdonald number). Surely he knew the population very well and could have located someone, a native, a student, somebody.

But when I talk about the oaths and commentary about them, what I take away isn't just procedural--it's the spirit that I find present in the variety of oaths. It seems to me that if the coroner decided he wanted you, he would have you so long as you were capable of making some sort of promise to tell the truth.

Cheers,
Dave

[Chris]

No, I wasn't thinking they wouldn't be able to find an interpreter. Just that using an interpreter would be a rather cumbersome procedure, which the coroner might prefer to avoid.

Not that that would have prevented Schwartz being called if his evidence were considered vital. On the other hand, can't we conclude from the fact that he wasn't called that it wasn't considered vital?

[Dave O]

On the other hand, can't we conclude from the fact that he wasn't called that it wasn't considered vital?

Hi Chris,

Maybe, that's where I lean. Perhaps Baxter thought him redundant? But then it pays to keep an open mind and play devil's advocate with yourself--obviously we're missing a bit of information that in the end will probably prove to be something commonplace. Also, don't we have examples of witnesses who weren't vital but were still called? And forget abut the description of the two men, doesn't Schwartz at least have something to say about the victim's movements, the circumstances leading up to her death?

And yet . . . look at Baxter's summation and see the amount of time he spends talking about Smith, Marshall, and Brown. Going by the account in The Times, he gives them space for about 750 words out of a total of almost 3000--don't trust my math, but isn't that about a quarter of the summation? Don't you think that's a significant amount? Clearly he's interested, but no Schwartz.

Perhaps it's better to agree that we don't have enough information to draw any firm conclusions!

Dave

[Chris]

Dave

I'm sure it's correct that we don't have enough information for any firm conclusions.

But I do find it difficult to believe that he could have been "officially" discredited by the police - in the sense that the coroner would have been informed of it and decided not to call Schwartz - without the knowledge of Swanson (certainly) or Abberline (apparently). Particularly as nearly half of Swanson's report of 19 October is taken up either with Schwartz's story, or with discussion of whether Schwartz or Smith was more likely to have seen the murderer.