A killing in Tripoli (1843): principle and contingency and personal diplomacy
Abstract This article examines the trial in 1843 and 1844 of Giovanni Battista Caruana, a Maltese, for the murder of a Jew in Tripoli. He was found guilty but was not executed because the victim's impoverished wife agreed to accept compensation. The case took place against the background of the British government's increasing impatience with what they saw as uncontrolled Maltese and Ionian communities, leading to the enactment of the Foreign Jurisdiction Act of 1844. It also demonstrated the importance of the individual authority of the Consul, Hanmer Warrington, and the extent to which consuls' personal objectives and opinions weighed on the development of British policy, and the extent to which Warrington's concern to uphold the law coincided with that of the Pasha of Tripoli, so that the case led to a close identification between the local government and the British consular representative.
Words into Texts: Justice Politics and the Written Record at a Trial in Tunis in 1844
Paolo Xuereb, a Maltese migrant in Tunis in the mid nineteenth century, was tried for murder in the court of the Bey of Tunis. Two contemporary documents describing the trial exist. One is a translated (into English) “transcript” made by the US consulate, the other is an Arabic statement of the verdict and sentence validated by some of the principal Islamic legal authorities of the Beylicate. The article compares these two documents and finds that where their focusses coincide they are nearly identical in content. But the differences between the documents are striking: one is an account of the course of the trial, the other a statement of its legalities and conclusions. This rare coincidence of documentation is used to tease out the implications for historians of how testimony given orally at a criminal trial in an Islamic environment is changed and transmitted when it is recorded in written form.
Leading cases in the common law
This work explores the phenomena in common law known as the "Leading Case" - cases which have established long-lasting and far-reaching precedents for the way judges have interpreted the law not only in England, but in other countries where English law has influenced the development of common law jurisdictions. By examining the historical circumstances surrounding a number of famous trials, this book reveals how leading cases often established principles which had little to do with the particular issues of the case itself. It should be of interest to historians and all lawyers interested in the development of common law.