Patrick Devlin, Baron Devlin
Encyclopedia
Patrick Arthur Devlin, Baron Devlin, PC
(25 November 1905 — 9 August 1992) was a British
lawyer
, judge
and jurist
. He wrote a report on Britain's involvement in Nyasaland
in 1959. In 1985 he became the first British judge to write a book about a case he had presided over - the 1957 trial of suspected serial killer
John Bodkin Adams
.
, Kent
. His father was a Roman Catholic architect
whose own father came from County Tyrone
, and his mother was a Protestant, originally from Aberdeen
. In 1909, a few years after Devlin's birth, the family moved to his mother's birthplace. The children were raised as Catholics, two of Devlin's sisters became nuns, and a brother became a Jesuit priest (another brother was an actor). Patrick Devlin joined the Dominican order
as a novice
after leaving Stonyhurst College
, but left after a year for Christ's College, Cambridge
.
At Cambridge, Devlin read both history
and law
, and he graduated in 1927, joining Gray's Inn
and passing the bar
exam in 1929. He worked as junior barrister for William Jowitt while Jowitt was Attorney-General, and by the late 1930s he had become a successful commercial lawyer. During the Second World War he worked for various ministries of the UK Government, and in 1948 Jowitt (by then Lord Chancellor
) made Devlin (then aged 42) a High Court
judge, the second-youngest such appointment in the 20th century. Devlin was knighted later that year.
In 1960, Devlin was made Lord Justice of the Court of Appeal, and the following year he became a Law Lord and life peer
as Baron Devlin, of West Wick in the County of Wiltshire
. He retired in 1964, at the age of 58, having completed the minimum 15 years then necessary to qualify for a full judicial pension. It is speculated that his retirement was due in part to his increasing deafness, and to his boredom with the large number of tax cases which came before the House of Lords. He himself explained in an interview: "I was extremely happy as a judge of first instance. I was never happy as an appellate judge [...] for the most part, the work was dreary beyond belief. All those revenue cases...."
After retirement, Baron Devlin was a judge on the tribunal of the International Labour Organization
until 1986. He was also chairman of the Press Council
from 1964–69, and High Steward
of Cambridge University from 1966-91. He also spent time writing about law and history, especially the interaction of law with moral philosophy, and the importance of juries. He was active in the campaigns to reopen the Guildford Four
and Maguire Seven cases. He died aged 86 in Kennet, Wiltshire
.
Patrick Devlin married Madeleine Oppenheimer in 1932; they had six children.
, an Eastbourne
doctor
indicted for murder
ing two of his patients - widows Edith Alice Morrell
and Gertrude Hullett
, one of them elderly. He was tried and controversially found not guilty on the former charge and even more controversially, the prosecutor - Attorney-General, Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller - entered a nolle prosequi
regarding the latter charge. Devlin later termed this "an abuse of process".
Devlin also received a phone call from Lord Chief Justice Rayner Goddard
while the jury was considering their verdict on the Morrell charge. In the event of Adams being acquitted, Goddard asked Devlin to consider releasing Adams on bail before the Hullett trial which was due to start afterwards. Devlin was surprised because no one accused of murder had ever been granted bail in British legal history. Unknown to Devlin, Goddard had had lunch with the defendant's close friend Roland Gwynne
at a hotel in Lewes
before the trial had commenced. Home Office pathologist Francis Camps
suspected Adams of causing 163 deaths in total.
In 1985, two years after the death of Adams, Devlin wrote an account of the trial, Easing the Passing - the first such book by a judge in British history.
in 1957, Devlin argued in support of James Fitzjames Stephen
that popular morality should be allowed to influence lawmaking, and that even private acts should be subject to legal sanction if they were held to be morally unacceptable by the "reasonable man", in order to preserve the moral fabric of society (Devlin's "reasonable man" was one who held commonly accepted views, not necessarily derived from reason as such). H. L. A. Hart
supported the report's opposing view (derived from John Stuart Mill
) that the law had no business interfering with private acts that harmed nobody. Devlin's argument was expanded in his 1965 book The Enforcement of Morals. As a result of his famous debate with Devlin on the role of the criminal law in enforcing moral norms, Hart wrote Law, Liberty and Morality (1963) and The Morality of the Criminal Law (1965).
Devlin argued that a society's existence depends on the maintenance of shared political and moral values. Violation of the shared morality loosens one of the bonds that hold a society together, and thereby threatens it with disintegration. Devlin proposed a public morality that, in certain situations, would override matters of personal or private judgment.
He argued that because an attack on “society’s constitutive morality” would threaten society with disintegration, such acts could not be free from public scrutiny and sanction on the basis that they were purely private acts. In Devlin’s view, homosexual acts were a threat to society’s morality. In short, he maintained that legal intervention was essential to ensure both individual and collective survival, and to prevent social disintegration due to a loss of social cohesion.
Devlin believed that "the limits of tolerance" are reached when the feelings of the ordinary person towards a particular form of conduct reaches a certain intensity of "intolerance, indignation and disgust". If, for example, it is the genuine feeling of society that homosexuality is "a vice so abominable that its mere presence is an offence", then society may eradicate it.
Devlin's views evolved over time. He signed a letter to The Times (11 May 1965) calling for implementation of the Wolfenden reforms.
to compile a report into policing in Nyasaland
(Malawi
). It was however highly critical of British methods. Macmillan reacted by criticising Devlin for having "that Fenian
blood that makes Irishmen anti-Government on principle" and for being "bitterly disappointed at my not having made him Lord Chief Justice". He also called him a "hunchback
". In response to the Devlin Report the government hurriedly commissioned the rival Armitage Report, which was delivered in July of that year and backed Britain's role there. Bernard Levin
, among others, was of the opinion that "The Government refused to accept the Devlin Report because it told the truth".
Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, usually known simply as the Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the Sovereign in the United Kingdom...
(25 November 1905 — 9 August 1992) was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
lawyer
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
, judge
Judge
A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is supposed to conduct the trial impartially and in an open...
and jurist
Jurist
A jurist or jurisconsult is a professional who studies, develops, applies, or otherwise deals with the law. The term is widely used in American English, but in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth countries it has only historical and specialist usage...
. He wrote a report on Britain's involvement in Nyasaland
Nyasaland
Nyasaland or the Nyasaland Protectorate, was a British protectorate located in Africa, which was established in 1907 when the former British Central Africa Protectorate changed its name. Since 1964, it has been known as Malawi....
in 1959. In 1985 he became the first British judge to write a book about a case he had presided over - the 1957 trial of suspected serial killer
Serial killer
A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...
John Bodkin Adams
John Bodkin Adams
John Bodkin Adams was an Irish-born British general practitioner, convicted fraudster and suspected serial killer. Between the years 1946 and 1956, more than 160 of his patients died in suspicious circumstances. Of these, 132 left him money or items in their will. He was tried and acquitted for...
.
Biography
Patrick Devlin was born in ChislehurstChislehurst
Chislehurst is a suburban district in south-east London, England, and an electoral ward of the London Borough of Bromley. It is south-east of Charing Cross.-Toponymy:...
, Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
. His father was a Roman Catholic architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...
whose own father came from County Tyrone
County Tyrone
Historically Tyrone stretched as far north as Lough Foyle, and comprised part of modern day County Londonderry east of the River Foyle. The majority of County Londonderry was carved out of Tyrone between 1610-1620 when that land went to the Guilds of London to set up profit making schemes based on...
, and his mother was a Protestant, originally from Aberdeen
Aberdeen
Aberdeen is Scotland's third most populous city, one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas and the United Kingdom's 25th most populous city, with an official population estimate of ....
. In 1909, a few years after Devlin's birth, the family moved to his mother's birthplace. The children were raised as Catholics, two of Devlin's sisters became nuns, and a brother became a Jesuit priest (another brother was an actor). Patrick Devlin joined the Dominican order
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...
as a novice
Novice
A novice is a person or creature who is new to a field or activity. The term is most commonly applied in religion and sports.-Buddhism:In many Buddhist orders, a man or woman who intends to take ordination must first become a novice, adopting part of the monastic code indicated in the vinaya and...
after leaving Stonyhurst College
Stonyhurst College
Stonyhurst College is a Roman Catholic independent school, adhering to the Jesuit tradition. It is located on the Stonyhurst Estate near the village of Hurst Green in the Ribble Valley area of Lancashire, England, and occupies a Grade I listed building...
, but left after a year for Christ's College, Cambridge
Christ's College, Cambridge
Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.With a reputation for high academic standards, Christ's College averaged top place in the Tompkins Table from 1980-2000 . In 2011, Christ's was placed sixth.-College history:...
.
At Cambridge, Devlin read both history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
and law
English law
English law is the legal system of England and Wales, and is the basis of common law legal systems used in most Commonwealth countries and the United States except Louisiana...
, and he graduated in 1927, joining Gray's Inn
Gray's Inn
The Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, commonly known as Gray's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court in London. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wales, an individual must belong to one of these Inns...
and passing the bar
Barrister
A barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...
exam in 1929. He worked as junior barrister for William Jowitt while Jowitt was Attorney-General, and by the late 1930s he had become a successful commercial lawyer. During the Second World War he worked for various ministries of the UK Government, and in 1948 Jowitt (by then Lord Chancellor
Lord Chancellor
The Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, or Lord Chancellor, is a senior and important functionary in the government of the United Kingdom. He is the second highest ranking of the Great Officers of State, ranking only after the Lord High Steward. The Lord Chancellor is appointed by the Sovereign...
) made Devlin (then aged 42) a High Court
High Court of Justice
The High Court of Justice is, together with the Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, one of the Senior Courts of England and Wales...
judge, the second-youngest such appointment in the 20th century. Devlin was knighted later that year.
In 1960, Devlin was made Lord Justice of the Court of Appeal, and the following year he became a Law Lord and life peer
Life peer
In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the Peerage whose titles cannot be inherited. Nowadays life peerages, always of baronial rank, are created under the Life Peerages Act 1958 and entitle the holders to seats in the House of Lords, presuming they meet qualifications such as...
as Baron Devlin, of West Wick in the County of Wiltshire
Wiltshire
Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...
. He retired in 1964, at the age of 58, having completed the minimum 15 years then necessary to qualify for a full judicial pension. It is speculated that his retirement was due in part to his increasing deafness, and to his boredom with the large number of tax cases which came before the House of Lords. He himself explained in an interview: "I was extremely happy as a judge of first instance. I was never happy as an appellate judge [...] for the most part, the work was dreary beyond belief. All those revenue cases...."
After retirement, Baron Devlin was a judge on the tribunal of the International Labour Organization
International Labour Organization
The International Labour Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations that deals with labour issues pertaining to international labour standards. Its headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland. Its secretariat — the people who are employed by it throughout the world — is known as the...
until 1986. He was also chairman of the Press Council
Press Complaints Commission
The Press Complaints Commission is a voluntary regulatory body for British printed newspapers and magazines, consisting of representatives of the major publishers. The PCC is funded by the annual levy it charges newspapers and magazines...
from 1964–69, and High Steward
High Steward (academia)
The High Steward in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge is a once-important but now largely ceremonial university official...
of Cambridge University from 1966-91. He also spent time writing about law and history, especially the interaction of law with moral philosophy, and the importance of juries. He was active in the campaigns to reopen the Guildford Four
Guildford Four
The Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven were two sets of people whose convictions in English courts for the Guildford pub bombings in the 1970s were eventually quashed...
and Maguire Seven cases. He died aged 86 in Kennet, Wiltshire
Wiltshire
Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...
.
Patrick Devlin married Madeleine Oppenheimer in 1932; they had six children.
John Bodkin Adams
Amongst many commercial and criminal cases which Devlin tried, one of the most famous was the 1957 trial of John Bodkin AdamsJohn Bodkin Adams
John Bodkin Adams was an Irish-born British general practitioner, convicted fraudster and suspected serial killer. Between the years 1946 and 1956, more than 160 of his patients died in suspicious circumstances. Of these, 132 left him money or items in their will. He was tried and acquitted for...
, an Eastbourne
Eastbourne
Eastbourne is a large town and borough in East Sussex, on the south coast of England between Brighton and Hastings. The town is situated at the eastern end of the chalk South Downs alongside the high cliff at Beachy Head...
doctor
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
indicted for murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
ing two of his patients - widows Edith Alice Morrell
Edith Alice Morrell
Edith Alice Morrell , was a resident of Eastbourne and patient of the suspected serial killer John Bodkin Adams. He was tried for her murder in 1957 but acquitted...
and Gertrude Hullett
Gertrude Hullett
Gertrude "Bobby" Hullett , a resident of Eastbourne, East Sussex, England, was a patient of the suspected serial killer Dr John Bodkin Adams, who was charged with her murder but never tried for it.-Jack Hullett:...
, one of them elderly. He was tried and controversially found not guilty on the former charge and even more controversially, the prosecutor - Attorney-General, Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller - entered a nolle prosequi
Nolle prosequi
Nolle prosequi is legal term of art and a Latin legal phrase meaning "to be unwilling to pursue", a phrase amounting to "please do not prosecute". It is a phrase used in many common law criminal prosecution contexts to describe a prosecutor's decision to voluntarily discontinue criminal charges...
regarding the latter charge. Devlin later termed this "an abuse of process".
Devlin also received a phone call from Lord Chief Justice Rayner Goddard
Rayner Goddard, Baron Goddard
Rayner Goddard, Baron Goddard was Lord Chief Justice of England from 1946 to 1958 and known for his strict sentencing and conservative views. He was nicknamed the 'Tiger' and "Justice-in-a-jiffy" for his no-nonsense manner...
while the jury was considering their verdict on the Morrell charge. In the event of Adams being acquitted, Goddard asked Devlin to consider releasing Adams on bail before the Hullett trial which was due to start afterwards. Devlin was surprised because no one accused of murder had ever been granted bail in British legal history. Unknown to Devlin, Goddard had had lunch with the defendant's close friend Roland Gwynne
Roland Gwynne
Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Roland Vaughan Gwynne, DSO, DL, JP was Mayor of Eastbourne, Sussex, from 1928 to 1931. He was also a patient and close friend of the suspected serial killer Dr John Bodkin Adams.-Childhood:...
at a hotel in Lewes
Lewes
Lewes is the county town of East Sussex, England and historically of all of Sussex. It is a civil parish and is the centre of the Lewes local government district. The settlement has a history as a bridging point and as a market town, and today as a communications hub and tourist-oriented town...
before the trial had commenced. Home Office pathologist Francis Camps
Francis Camps
Francis Edward Camps, FRCP, FRCpath was a famous English pathologist notable for his work on the cases of serial killer John Christie and suspected serial killer John Bodkin Adams.-Early life and training:...
suspected Adams of causing 163 deaths in total.
In 1985, two years after the death of Adams, Devlin wrote an account of the trial, Easing the Passing - the first such book by a judge in British history.
Reaction to Easing the Passing
Easing the Passing provoked a lot of controversy within the legal profession. Some disapproved of a judge writing about a case he had presided over, while others disliked Devlin's dismissal of Manningham-Buller's approach to the case. Lord Hailsham told judge John Baker: "He ought never to have written it" before adding with a laugh, "But, it's a jolly good read".Wolfenden report
After the Wolfenden reportWolfenden report
The Report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution was published in Britain on 4 September 1957 after a succession of well-known men, including Lord Montagu, Michael Pitt-Rivers and Peter Wildeblood, were convicted of homosexual offences.-The committee:The...
in 1957, Devlin argued in support of James Fitzjames Stephen
James Fitzjames Stephen
Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, 1st Baronet was an English lawyer, judge and writer. He was created 1st Baronet Stephen by Queen Victoria.-Early life:...
that popular morality should be allowed to influence lawmaking, and that even private acts should be subject to legal sanction if they were held to be morally unacceptable by the "reasonable man", in order to preserve the moral fabric of society (Devlin's "reasonable man" was one who held commonly accepted views, not necessarily derived from reason as such). H. L. A. Hart
H. L. A. Hart
Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart was an influential legal philosopher of the 20th century. He was Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford University and the Principal of Brasenose College, Oxford. He authored The Concept of Law....
supported the report's opposing view (derived from John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...
) that the law had no business interfering with private acts that harmed nobody. Devlin's argument was expanded in his 1965 book The Enforcement of Morals. As a result of his famous debate with Devlin on the role of the criminal law in enforcing moral norms, Hart wrote Law, Liberty and Morality (1963) and The Morality of the Criminal Law (1965).
Devlin argued that a society's existence depends on the maintenance of shared political and moral values. Violation of the shared morality loosens one of the bonds that hold a society together, and thereby threatens it with disintegration. Devlin proposed a public morality that, in certain situations, would override matters of personal or private judgment.
He argued that because an attack on “society’s constitutive morality” would threaten society with disintegration, such acts could not be free from public scrutiny and sanction on the basis that they were purely private acts. In Devlin’s view, homosexual acts were a threat to society’s morality. In short, he maintained that legal intervention was essential to ensure both individual and collective survival, and to prevent social disintegration due to a loss of social cohesion.
Devlin believed that "the limits of tolerance" are reached when the feelings of the ordinary person towards a particular form of conduct reaches a certain intensity of "intolerance, indignation and disgust". If, for example, it is the genuine feeling of society that homosexuality is "a vice so abominable that its mere presence is an offence", then society may eradicate it.
Devlin's views evolved over time. He signed a letter to The Times (11 May 1965) calling for implementation of the Wolfenden reforms.
Nyasaland
In 1959 Devlin was chosen by Prime Minister Harold MacmillanHarold Macmillan
Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC was Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 January 1957 to 18 October 1963....
to compile a report into policing in Nyasaland
Nyasaland
Nyasaland or the Nyasaland Protectorate, was a British protectorate located in Africa, which was established in 1907 when the former British Central Africa Protectorate changed its name. Since 1964, it has been known as Malawi....
(Malawi
Malawi
The Republic of Malawi is a landlocked country in southeast Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the northeast, and Mozambique on the east, south and west. The country is separated from Tanzania and Mozambique by Lake Malawi. Its size...
). It was however highly critical of British methods. Macmillan reacted by criticising Devlin for having "that Fenian
Fenian
The Fenians , both the Fenian Brotherhood and Irish Republican Brotherhood , were fraternal organisations dedicated to the establishment of an independent Irish Republic in the 19th and early 20th century. The name "Fenians" was first applied by John O'Mahony to the members of the Irish republican...
blood that makes Irishmen anti-Government on principle" and for being "bitterly disappointed at my not having made him Lord Chief Justice". He also called him a "hunchback
Hunchback
Hunchback may refer to one of the following.*A derogatory term for a person who has severe kyphosis*The Hunchback of Notre Dame*Hunchback , an arcade and computer game from the 1980s*The Hunchback, a 1914 film featuring Lillian Gish...
". In response to the Devlin Report the government hurriedly commissioned the rival Armitage Report, which was delivered in July of that year and backed Britain's role there. Bernard Levin
Bernard Levin
Henry Bernard Levin CBE was an English journalist, author and broadcaster, described by The Times as "the most famous journalist of his day". The son of a poor Jewish family in London, he won a scholarship to the independent school Christ's Hospital and went on to the London School of Economics,...
, among others, was of the opinion that "The Government refused to accept the Devlin Report because it told the truth".
Books by Patrick Devlin
- Devlin, The Hon. Sir Patrick, Trial by Jury, London, Stevens & Sons Ltd, 1956, 1966.
- Devlin, Patrick, The Enforcement of Morals, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1965, 1968.
- Devlin, Patrick, Too proud to Fight, 1974 (biography of Woodrow WilsonWoodrow WilsonThomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
). - Devlin, Patrick, The Judge, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1979, 1981.
- Devlin, Patrick, Easing the Passing, London, The Bodley Head, 1985.
Sources
- Cullen, Pamela V., A Stranger in Blood: The Case Files on Dr John Bodkin Adams, London, Elliott & Thompson, 2006, ISBN 1-904027-19-9
External links
- Review of Devlin's autobiography by Alan WatkinsAlan WatkinsAlan Rhun Watkins was for over 50 years a British political columnist in various London-based magazines and newspapers...
- A recent academic article that rehabilitates Devlin's approach to sexual morality as an appropriate legal approach to regulating 'extreme pornography'