Book Reviews : The Defendant's Rights Under English Law. By DAVID FELLMAN. (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1966. Pp. x, 137. $4.00.)
| Author | Ned V. Joy |
| Published date | 01 December 1966 |
| Date | 01 December 1966 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/106591296601900421 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
744
absence
of
information
about
Schumacher’s
youth;
as
Edinger
admits,
there
is
simply
not
much
available.
Kurt
Schumacher,
then,
fails
at
precisely
the
most
important
point.
After
the
distinction
has
been
drawn
between
&dquo;conventional&dquo;
biography
and
what
I
have
called
behavioral
biography,
one
expects
a
demonstration
that
there
really
is
a
difference.
On
this
count
-
unfortunately
the
most
important
-
Edinger
fails
to
persuade.
By
conventional standards
the
book
is
well
worth
reading.
If
it
fails
to
satisfy,
the
reason
would
seem
to
lie
(as
with
so
much
other
&dquo;scientific&dquo;
political
writing)
in
the
immodest
ends
which
now
obsess
American
political
scientists.
The
performance
simply
does
not
match
the
promises.
Louisiana
State
University
W.
WAYNE
SHANNON
The
Defendant’s
Rights
Under
English
Law.
By
DAVID
FELLMAN.
(Madison:
The
University
of
Wisconsin
Press,
1966.
Pp.
x,
137.
$4.00.)
In
his
Preface
David
Fellman is
at
pains
to
explain
the
limited
purpose
and
scope
of
his
most
recent
work.
&dquo;I
suppose
I
cast
a
small
net,&dquo;
he
concludes,
&dquo;but
then,
this
is
a
small
book.&dquo;
It
should
be
added
that
it
is
an
excellent
book,
one
that
meets
fully
the
high
standards
set
by
Fellman’s
earlier
work
in
American
law,
The
De f endant’s
Rights.
American
scholarship
on
rights
of
the
accused
inevitably
focuses
on
constitu-
tional
provisions,
and
the
clauses
found
in
our
constitutions
provide
a
convenient
framework
for
organizing
the
presentation
of
material
on
the
subject.
By
contrast,
in
England &dquo;...
what
Americans
call
the
constitutional
rights
of
defendants
in
criminal
cases
are
generally
regarded
as
being
merely
part
of
the
corpus
of
criminal
law.&dquo;
Of
course,
these
rights
are
no
less
secure
in
England
than
in the
United
States,
but
the
differences
in
the
two
bodies
of
law
account
for
the
decision
in
this
book
to
use
essentially
American
categories
in
discussing
English
practice.
The
book
consists
of
compact,
carefully
documented
summaries
of
the
English
law
on
arrest,
bail,
prosecution,
police
interrogation,
confessions,
searches
and
seizures,
use
of
wrongfully
secured
evidence,
habeas
corpus,
public
trial,
right
to
counsel,
double
jeopardy,
the
jury,
burden
of
proof,
and
comment
by
the
judge.
Only
a
scholar
with
very
specialized
interest
in
English
law
will
find
it
necessary
to
go
beyond
Fellman’s
work
for
answers
on
these
subjects.
This
book
has
additional
merit;
it
is
unlikely
to
require
revision
for
many
years.
One
is
struck
again
with
the
stability
of
English
law.
It
is
not
just
that
almost
every
subject
covered
by
the
author
begins
with
a
statement
of
principle
derived
from
a
centuries-old
case,
but
that
with
rare
exceptions
the
more
recent
citations
are
to
cases
in
which
the ancient
principle
has
been
applied
unchanged.
The
contrast
with
David
Fellman’s
The
De f endant’s
Rights
is
marked. In
the
American
study,
more
than
half
of
the
citations
are
to
cases
decided
since
1920
and
more
often
than
not
the
discussion
of
a
topic
is
a
chronicling
of
the
changes
in
the
law
made
by
more
recent
cases.
Moreover,
although
Fellman’s
outstanding
work
was
published
as
recently
as
1958,
a
rereading
of
it
reveals
that
major
por-
tions
of
it
are
now
incorrect
statements
of
the
law
on
the
subject.
Well,
taking
To continue reading
Request your trial