Oscar Slater
Oscar Joseph Slater (8 January 1872 – 1948) was a victim of miscarriage of justice. He was born Oscar Leschziner in Oppeln, Upper Silesia, Germany to a Jewish family. Around 1893, to evade military service, he moved to London where he worked as a bookmaker using various names, including Anderson, before settling on Slater for official purposes. He was prosecuted for malicious wounding in 1896 and assault in 1897 but was acquitted in both cases.[1]
In 1899 he moved to Edinburgh and by 1901 was living in Glasgow. He claimed to be a gymnastics instructor, a dentist, and a dealer in precious stones but was known to police as a pimp [2] and gangster who associated with thieves, burglars, and receivers of stolen goods.[1]
Marion Gilchrist
In December 1908 Marion Gilchrist, an 83 year old spinster, was beaten to death in a robbery at West Princes Street, Glasgow. Despite her many possessions, all that was taken was a brooch. Slater had left for New York five days after the murder and came under suspicion as, before the murder, a caller to Gilchrist's house had been looking for someone called 'Anderson', and Slater had previously been seen trying to sell a pawn ticket for a brooch.[1]
Conviction
The police soon realised that the pawn ticket was a false lead but still applied for Slater's extradition. Slater was advised that the application would probably fail, but, in any case, decided to return voluntarily to Scotland. At his trial, defence witnesses provided Slater with an alibi and confirmed that he had announced his visit to America long before the murder.[2] He was convicted by a majority of nine to six (five ‘not proven’ and one ‘not guilty’).[1] In May 1909 he was sentenced to death, the execution to take place before the end of the month.[3] However, the trial judge, Lord Guthrie organised a petition, signed by 20,000 people [4] and the secretary for Scotland, Lord Pentland, issued a conditional pardon and commuted the sentence to life imprisonment.[1]
The following year Scottish lawyer and amateur criminologist, William Roughead, published his Trial of Oscar Slater highlighting flaws in the prosecution. The circumstantial evidence against Slater included his ‘flight from justice’; while the Jury had been made aware of his entire past life; The identification evidence was fleeting and otherwise unreliable, prejudiced, tainted, or coached. In particular Slater was conspicuously contrasted with nine off-duty policemen in his identification parade.[1]
The Case of Oscar Slater
Roughead's book convinced many of Slater's innocence; influential people included Sir Edward Marshall Hall; Ramsay MacDonald; (eventually) Viscount Buckmaster; and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.[1] In 1912, Conan Doyle published The Case of Oscar Slater, a plea for a full pardon for Slater.