Who's talking Cobblers ? John Richardson ?

[Cogidubnus]

Hi Bridewell.
There is a difference though, layperson's are not permitted to offer conclusions in a court unless asked to do so. An eyewitness is generally supposed to convey what they saw or heard, whereas a professional witness (Doctor?) is expected to provide his conclusions but not expected to explain how he arrived at them, unless asked to do so.

So while both are "witnesses" they are of a completely different level.
Whether the jury accept an eyewitness over a medical witness is obviously beyond the control of the Judge/Coroner.
Sadly, eyewitness testimony due to its simplicity can appear stronger than complicated medical testimony which many juror's may be unable to comprehend.

Interesting!
A murder such as this and so late in the morning would be fuel for the fire in any proposal that Kelly was not a Ripper victim.
I'm intrigued by Maxwell & Lewis but I resist from taking their words over medical opinion. The team of medical experts assembled in Millers Court were not novices and certainly the majority were well aquainted with the uncertainties of their task, especially with respect to establishing a ToD.

Regards, Jon S.

Good god Jon...that's three times in a week I've agreed with you outright! Have you turned over a new leaf? (I know I haven't!)

All the best

Dave

[Cogidubnus]

Observer

I have to admit that yours is easily the most sensible and balanced post I've seen lately regarding this particular murder...As you'll be aware, although I totally distrust Richardson as a witness, I find I can't simply dismiss Long and Cadosch...

I can believe Long was "on autopilot" for part of her walk to work and perhaps mistook the quarter hour strike for the half hour, but not the rest...it was a Saturday and probably stuck in her mind as being that little bit different...else the clock strike or something else woke her up to her surroundings (both have happened to me)...either way, I'm pretty well convinced she saw Chapman...

Rereading the evidence (in the Ultimate JtR Sourcebook and elsewhere) it becomes clear you're right - the doctor based his evidence primarily on body temperature (with rigor mentioned, only in some accounts and then almost as an afterthought)...and although the later TOD is something I'm instinctively still not entirely comfortable with, I'm at least now more relaxed with the reduction in conflict beween medical and witness evidence...

Thanks mate

Dave

[Bridewell]

There have been terrible miscarriages of justice based on mistaken eyewitness testimony

Fair point, but there have also been terrible miscarriages of justice based on supposedly expert testimony which turned out to be nothing of the sort:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4685511.stm

Regards, Bridewell.

[Cogidubnus]

There's worse than that Bridewell... see the Scottish Fingerprint Service scandal...arising out of HM Advocate v McKie and in which it is finally conceded that fingerprint evidence is expressed scientific opinion and NOT scientific fact...

Dave

[Debra A]

Depends on the witness...I see him as weak willed, possibly dominated by his mother, maybe even a tad simple or afflicted...

Or afflicted...
Funny you should say that, Dave.
Would it alter anyone's views at all to know that John Richardson was an epileptic of some sort? I have no idea of the type, just that (if I have the right man) he was discharged from the army due to it,in the 1870s.

[Archaic]

Richardson & Possible Epilepsy

Or afflicted...
Funny you should say that, Dave.
Would it alter anyone's views at all to know that John Richardson was an epileptic of some sort? I have no idea of the type, just that (if I have the right man) he was discharged from the army due to it,in the 1870s.

That's interesting, Debs; I don't think I've heard that before.

It might help to keep in mind that Epilepsy is a physical rather than a mental illness.

I wonder if Richardson feared having a seizure of some sort when he was testifying? Poor man, that couldn't have helped his nerves. Epilepsy was not understood in the 1880's and most people believed it was a mental illness.

Best regards,
Archaic

[Debra A]

That's probably because I had access to army records at the exact time Neal Shelden posted his biographical details, Archaic.
Although a physical illness, it does manifest in different ways. I believe there is a milder form that involves a trance-like possible time loss state but no fitting?

[Tom_Wescott]

Very interesting, Debs. I've been reading about forms of epilepsy which, in fact, cause people to kill in moments of rage.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Cogidubnus]

Hi Debs

My former brother-in-law is an epileptic so I have some experience here...

Presumably (even at a petit mal level) this potentially affects his ability to honestly witness the time he's arrived at the scene, the time he's allegedly sat on the step, the time he's got up and the time he's gone to work...In an extreme case, his ability even to tell from one day to the next whether he's fulfilled a particular task...

Interesting...

Dave

[Debra A]

I'm guessing we will all have our own experiences of epilepsy. I just threw it into the mix because we think we know someone... a witness...but do we really?

[Tom_Wescott]

You're absolutely right about that. At best, we have thumb nail sketches. A doable comparison might be these boards. If someone a hundred years from now were to read our posts, they would think they'd know us. But would they?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Simon Wood]

Hi Tom,

If Casebook got donated to the Library of Congress and "someone a hundred years from now were to read our posts" they would think we were all stark raving nuts.

Regards,

Simon

[Wickerman]

Good god Jon...that's three times in a week I've agreed with you outright! Have you turned over a new leaf? (I know I haven't!)

All the best

Dave

You're keeping count?
....I'm still getting over jet-lag, ...England is so conjested, I'm glad to be home.

All the best, Jon S.

[Wickerman]

The operative words here are "but it is right to say". Now to me, this implies that Dr Philips recognised that the great loss of blood and the fairly cold morning meant that his arrival at the TOD was based on the temperature of the body, and the surrounding cool air.

Precisely why I thought Supe had erred in suggesting that Dr Phillips had not followed procedure in taking the body temperature.

He does not mention rigor mortis in the above passage. And it has been pointed out earlier in this thread that rigor can set in after as little as one hour after death. This is what Dr Philips said regarding rigor. I quote.

"The body was cold, except that there was a certain remaining heat, under the intestines, in the body. Stiffness of the limbs was not marked, but it was commencing."

In the late 19th century I think that the onset of Rigor was associated with the temperature of the body. I could be wrong here, but in reading the relative literature I find no mention of the theory of a chemical process at work.
Tieing Rigor to the presence of lactic acid is a fairly recent discovery and I'm pretty sure was not known back in 1888. If anyone knows otherwise I would appreciate a heads-up.

Regards, Jon S.

[Wickerman]

There's worse than that Bridewell... see the Scottish Fingerprint Service scandal...arising out of HM Advocate v McKie and in which it is finally conceded that fingerprint evidence is expressed scientific opinion and NOT scientific fact...

Dave

Interesting that you should bring this up, recently (April?) we had a documentary about police forensic sciences, essentially putting CSI under the microscope.
Fingerprint analysis is on a par with the argument that no two snowflakes are the same. Claims which cannot be proven.

A case in question had one man firmly identified by a partial print which provided so many identical loops & whirls it was a foregone conclusion, passed by three independent labs.
The man was convicted, until another crime was committed where this same print surfaced again, this time complete, but this time matched another known criminal who was on the loose.
Too many fingerprint convictions are by partial prints, apparently.

Regards, Jon S.