RB 54

178 been condemned to death for killing crofter Gustaf Sorvaniemi. The JDS had, however, condemned the accused to confessional imprisonment. After Jylha’s confession, the case was taken up again in 1830. In the original trial, the prosecution had produced three eyewitnesses, on whose statements the Hundred Court and the High Court had based their decisions. The JDS did not, however, judge the witnesses sufficiently credible and did not, therefore, take full proof to be at hand. Although theJDS does not expressly refer to them, there were indeed circumstances that rendered the witness testimonies dubitable: the witnesses belonged to the same “gang”; furthermore, the accused at first charged the witnesses with attempting to force him to confess."*^ Witnesses who, instead of having themselves seen what they testify about, have made their original observations by hearing (auricular witnesses) are rare in the material. I have found only one case where auricular witnesses have played a decisive role. Farmhand Gustaf Konstberg and carpenter Paul Friberg stood charges in the City Court of Hämeenlinna for the killing of journeyman Johan Fagerlund. They were condemned on the basis of the testimonies of two witnesses who had heard cries of help froma roomin which, as several witnesses testified, only the victim and the accused had been (City Court of Hämeenlinna, September 30, 1830; High Court of Turku, November 13, 1830; theJDS, May 31, 183!).■♦" Conclusion: Permissive Interpretation of Witness Evidence The above shows clearly that the Finnish courts, already in the period of legal proof, in fact evaluated witness evidence considerably more freely than could be assumed just by reading the text of the statutes. As for the lower courts, the conclusion is inescapable; it is valid, although to a lesser extent, as far as higher instances are concerned as well. In the era of legal proof, the attitude of the Finnish courts towards the requirement of full proof can best be described as loose and permissive. On one hand, it was clearly important, especially for the lower courts, to attempt to accommodate decision grounds to the rules of legal proof. There was, therefore, a marked effort to treat witnesses as eyewitnesses whenever that was somehowpossible. On the other hand, the requirement of concurrence between the testimonies was not interpreted strictly. In many cases, it sufficed that tw'o eyewitnesses could be produced; their strict mutual concurrence was clearly a secondary matter. Throughout the nineteenth century, witnesses were heard extensively in homicide cases. Clearly, the purpose was not only to search for the confession or the two witnesses required by law. Even after the legal full proof was obJylhä, pag. 171/1819 and pag. 355/1830; and Backman, pag. 62/1851. Konstberg and Friberg, pag. 406/1830.

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