Trial of William Burke and Helen M'Dougal : before the High Court of Justiciary, at Edinburgh, on Wednesday, December 24. 1828, for the murder of Margery Campbell, or Docherty / Taken in short hand by Mr John Macnee, writer. With an illustrative preface.

  • Burke, William, 1792-1829.
Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Trial of William Burke and Helen M'Dougal : before the High Court of Justiciary, at Edinburgh, on Wednesday, December 24. 1828, for the murder of Margery Campbell, or Docherty / Taken in short hand by Mr John Macnee, writer. With an illustrative preface. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The Defences for Helen M'Dougal were lodged and read as follows:— ' If it shall be decided that the prisoner is obliged to answer * to this indictment at all, her answer to it is, that she is not 6 guilty, aud that the Prosecutor cannot prove the facts on * which his charge rests. But she humbly submits that she is 6 not bound to plead to it. She is accused of one murder com- * mitted in October 1828, in a house in Portsburgh, and of no * other offence. Yet she is placed in an indictment along with 6 a different person, who is accused of other two murders, each. * of them committed at a different time, and at a different place, 6 —it not being alleged that she had any connexion with either * of these crimes. This accumulation of pannels and of of- * fences is not necessary for public justice, and exposes the ac- 6 cused to intolerable prejudice, and is not warranted, so far as 1 can be ascertained, even by a single precedent.' Mr Robertson.—My Lords, in support of the defences which have now been read to your Lordships, I must direct the atten- tion of the Court, as shortly as I can, to the grounds upon which we conceive that the trial upon this indictment should not be allowed to proceed. In the indictment there are named two prisoners, William Burke and Helen M'Dougal, which two pri- soners are not stated on the face of the indictment to have had any connexion with one another. It is simply stated, that there are two separate and distinct prisoners to be tried for murder, under one indictment. My Lords, the major proposition of the indictment contains a charge of murder, laid simply without any specific aggravation whatever,—then the minor proposition contains three charges for murde^, totally unconnected with one another. The first charge is against William Burke alone, of a murder said to have been committed in the month of April, or the month of March preceding, or May immediately following, in a certain place of the Canongate of Edinburgh. It is not stated that Burke had any accomplices in this murder. He is the sole person charged with that specific offence. Then, my Lords, after describing the manner in which the murder is al- leged to have been committed, it is stated, in the end of the charge, that this was done by the prisoner, 4 with the wicked * aforethought intent of disposing of, or selling the body of the ' said Mary Paterson, or Mitchell, when so murdered, to a phy- ' sician, or surgeon, or some person in the employment of a 6 physician, or surgeon, as a subject for dissection, or with some 6 other wicked and felonious intent, to the prosecutor unknown.'