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?
"该犯出狱时，发现自己妻子已经作古，几个儿女及年迈的双亲都被送到了济贫院，及至一小笔"补偿金"发到手时，这位遭误判的可怜人已经神智失常，无可挽救了。"在这一点上，我们完全同意黑尔先生的看法，同他一样对法律感到愤慨。但接下来他就举出了著名的伊文思案件，在这一案中很可能杀错了人，于是他惊呼："既然会发生这种错判，难道社会还应当强制推行无可挽回的刑罚吗?"难道黑尔先生真的要我们相信对其妻子身死、本人被逼疯的那个人作出判决在任何意义上是可以挽回的吗?难道人们不是宁愿像伊文思那样一死了之而不愿自己成为那位拿着一点补偿金"出狱"，但却完全失去继续生活愿望的不幸者吗?
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无法挽回的，尤以监禁为最。受审的折磨本身就是一种惩罚，即使审讯后无罪释放也丝毫不能抵消受害者所受的痛苦。请读一读威廉·瓦雷斯那令人肠断的日记吧。说来令人难以置信，他曾被控谋杀了自己妻子，后来经刑事案件上诉法庭才"得救"--但得救了又怎样呢?还不是遭受众人冷眼，在孤独绝望中苟活几年而已!阿道夫贝克案件、奥斯卡斯莱特案件，还有涉及那位以莫须有罪名被当成伪造犯，在星星监狱中呆了八年，出狱后变成一个身体伤残、无亲无故、领到"补偿"的废人的布鲁克林银行出纳员的案件--如果说个人的尊严还有什么意义的话，所有这些案件中的受害人还不如在入狱之前就一死了之。
来源:可可英语 //www.utensil-race.com/Article/201705/510351.shtml
评论
打印
