The prisoner emerged to find that his wife had died and that his children and his aged parents had been removed to the workhouse. By the time a small payment had been assessed as 'compensation' the victim was incurably insane." So far we are as indignant with the law as Mr. Hale. But what comes next? He cites the famous Evans case, in which it is very probable that the wrong man was hanged, and he exclaims: "While such mistakes are possible, should society impose an irrevocable sentence?" Does Mr. Hale really ask us to believe that the sentence passed on the first man, whose wife died and who went insane, was in any sense revocable? Would not any man rather be Evans dead than that other wretch "emerging" with his small compensation and his reasons for living gone?
"該犯出獄時，發(fā)現(xiàn)自己妻子已經(jīng)作古，幾個兒女及年邁的雙親都被送到了濟(jì)貧院，及至一小筆"補(bǔ)償金"發(fā)到手時，這位遭誤判的可憐人已經(jīng)神智失常，無可挽救了。"在這一點上，我們完全同意黑爾先生的看法，同他一樣對法律感到憤慨。但接下來他就舉出了著名的伊文思案件，在這一案中很可能殺錯了人，于是他驚呼："既然會發(fā)生這種錯判，難道社會還應(yīng)當(dāng)強(qiáng)制推行無可挽回的刑罰嗎?"難道黑爾先生真的要我們相信對其妻子身死、本人被逼瘋的那個人作出判決在任何意義上是可以挽回的嗎?難道人們不是寧愿像伊文思那樣一死了之而不愿自己成為那位拿著一點補(bǔ)償金"出獄"，但卻完全失去繼續(xù)生活愿望的不幸者嗎?
Nothing is revocable here below, imprisonment least of all. The agony of a trial itself is punishment, and acquittalwipes out nothing. Read the heart-rending diary of William Wallace, accused quite implausibly of having murdered his wife and "saved" by the Court of Criminal Appeals - but saved for what ? Brutish ostracism by everyone and a few years of solitary despair. The cases of Adolf Beck, of Oscar Slater, of the unhappy Brooklyn bank teller who vaguely resembled a forger and spent eight years in Sing Sing only to "emerge" a broken, friendless, useless, "compensated" man - all these, if the dignity of the individual has any meaning, had better have been dead before the prison door ever opened for them.
下面提到的所有案例都是無法挽回的，尤以監(jiān)禁為最。受審的折磨本身就是一種懲罰，即使審訊后無罪釋放也絲毫不能抵消受害者所受的痛苦。請讀一讀威廉·瓦雷斯那令人腸斷的日記吧。說來令人難以置信，他曾被控謀殺了自己妻子，后來經(jīng)刑事案件上訴法庭才"得救"--但得救了又怎樣呢?還不是遭受眾人冷眼，在孤獨絕望中茍活幾年而已!阿道夫貝克案件、奧斯卡斯萊特案件，還有涉及那位以莫須有罪名被當(dāng)成偽造犯，在星星監(jiān)獄中呆了八年，出獄后變成一個身體傷殘、無親無故、領(lǐng)到"補(bǔ)償"的廢人的布魯克林銀行出納員的案件--如果說個人的尊嚴(yán)還有什么意義的話，所有這些案件中的受害人還不如在入獄之前就一死了之。
來源:可可英語 http://www.ccdyzl.cn/Article/201705/510351.shtml
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