Carpenter, this paper attempts to construe how the influence of unwritten law, written law and customs ultimately led a jury panel to convict a man of manslaughter even though there was arguably no concrete evidence of foul play on his part. Around six weeks after the marriage of Robert and Lillie Carpenter, Carpenter and his cousin, Margaret Giles, comes back to find his wife in an unresponsive and assumed fit-like state. After unsuccessfully trying to warm her up with hot water, Giles instructed Carpenter to “go for Dr. McDonald” at which point Carpenter left and returned before dark with the doctor. When the doctor arrived, he felt her pulse, examined her pupils and checked for breath before he pronounced her dead. After a post mortem examination was performed on Lillie Carpenter’s body, the two examiners had agreed that she had died of unnatural causes. Following this, a court hearing was conducted to determine the innocence of Robert Carpenter. In the trial, witness testimonies formed the basis of most of the evidence, if not all of the evidence, presented in court. Since the nature of these testimonies were all circumstantial at best, it is easy to accept that there must have been other factors that affected the outcome of the conviction. If the case had been conducted today, it is most probable that the evidence used to convict Carpenter of manslaughter would be considered both insufficient and questionable. The evidence that the prosecutor relied on was strong in theory, but weak in practice, as it only suggested that Carpenter could have been culpable rather than culpable beyond a reasonable doubt. Prosecution started the session with the swearing in of Peter Jones, a medical practitioner. Jones had testified that in his opinion, the congestion in the brain caused …show more content…
Carpenter’s neighbour, William Johnston was called to the stand first, in which he stated that when he passed the Carpenter house that morning, he had heard some “loud talking” about 25 to 30 yards away. This suggested that the “loud talking” Johnston was referring to could, arguably, have more accurately been described as shouting. Another similar testimony was made by Jacob Baptiste, in which he testified to hearing somebody “scold, mad or something” around one o’clock that day, also about 25 to 30 yards away. When asked about the content of what had been said, Baptiste had said he could not make out what was being said ; however, Johnston had heard Carpenter yell “Jesus Christ, get up, or I will roll you right into it” followed by a noise that resembled furniture being knocked or kicked around. James Henry, who was meeting Johnston that morning had testified confirming the story that Johnston had told and added that he heard him say “get up off of there you ain’t that sick” to Lillie that morning. When questioned further about what had happened following that comment, Henry had said that he believed someone had jerked Lillie out of the chair she was sitting on. These testimonies suggested that there had been foul play several times throughout the day of the alleged murder as he was heard yelling both in the