The Freeman’s Journal - Thursday, May 2, 1895
This report was originally published in English. Machine translations may be available in other languages.
LONDON CORRESPONDENCE.
(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)
(BY SPECIAL WIRE.)
London, Thursday Morning.
[...]The disagreement of the jury in the case against Oscar Wilde was received everywhere with astonishment except in the court. Those who had heard the judge's charge were not unprepared for such an unsatisfactory result of a highly unsavoury case. The procedure in such circumstances is that the prisoner is put back for re-trial at the next sessions. Of course it is optional with the Crown whether they will proceed again with a case or not. It is only in Ireland in the cases of prisoners charged with offences of a political nature that the full rigour of the law is strained to get convictions where a jury has failed to agree. In the present instance of course there are felt to be special reasons why the responsibility of the Crown should be exercised with particular care. There will, naturally, be a desire to avoid raking up anew these abominations, while there is also the necessity of visiting with condign punishment an offence which, if established, is of the most odious nature.[...]
[...] The disagreement of the jury in the case against Oscar Wilde was received everywhere with astonishment except in the court. Those who had heard the judge’s charge were not unprepared for such an unsatisfactory result of a highly unsavoury case. The procedure in such circumstances is that the prisoner is put back for re-trial at the next sessions. Of course it is optional with the Crown whether they will proceed again with a case or not. It is only in Ireland in the cases of prisoners charged with offences of a political nature that the full rigour of the law is strained to get convictions where a jury has failed to agree. In the present instance of course there are felt to be special reasons why the responsibility of the Crown should be exercised with particular care. There will, naturally, be a desire to avoid raking up anew these abominations, while there is also the necessity of visiting with condign punishment an offence which, if established, is of the most odious nature.