The proof of alibi

Abstract

Alibi has always been a popular and notorious defence. The early popularity of the defence of alibi in Scotland is vouched for by Baron Hume in 18001 and by John Burnett in 1811. Both writers describe it as a defence frequently resorted to. In England in January 1813 Thomas B. and Le Blanc J. sat at York, under a special commission, to try eight cases against the Luddites. In five of the first seven cases the defence of alibi was raised. However a fondness for alibi was not merely an eccentricity of the Luddites. In the 1850s Jervis L.C.J. told a Nottingham jury that the special crop of their country appeared to be alibis. Similarly in the United States, in a Texas case in the 1870s, a trial judge instructed the jury that it was a defence often set up. However the defence of alibi has always been the object of sheer denigration and profound distrust by judges and jurists alike. It is not surprising that in the 1880s, a South Carolina judge in his instruction to the jury called it a favourite defence, "referred to in the books as the rogues' defence." In Malta the defence of alibi has featured in several cases, however it is still, by and large, unexplored and mostly a neglected subject. In this context, this thesis sets out to analyse some of the most important aspects of alibi. Chapter I will attempt to give a comprehensive definition of the proof of alibi. This is intended to provide defined parameters of the proof of alibi and simultaneously outline the boundaries within which the defence operates. Chapter II outlines one of the foremost issues surrounding the proof of alibi-denigration of the defence. This should provide an ideal background to help us understand some of the reasons behind alibi statutes in the United Kingdom and the United States.