I70 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. courage all but cases which they think worth arguing. This, if restrained by a wary anxiety to see any real chance of doubt and then allow full argument, must go far in weeding out from the rest really hopeless appeals, and so in adding to the speed and popularity of litigation. To give an instance of the new method, it is said that a plaintiff, an attorney, recently appeared fro se moving for a new trial of a libel action on the ground of misdirection. A bill had been sent him for an account which he had paid, and it had been opened by a clerk, — that was his libel. After he had argued five minutes, Lord Esher leaned foward and this is the substance of his remarks : — " Mr. , if your complaint had been demurred to, the demurrer would have been sustained ; if, at the trial, a motion lor a nonsuit had been made it should have been granted ; failing that, the jury ought to have found against you, as they did." Then, leaning back again, he added, after a moment : " But I'm open to conviction. I'm open to con- viction." In some hands this might do injustice. Even if the plaintiff had had a case for argument such a greeting might have diminished the force of his logic. Can a Murderer acquire a Title by his Crime? — In 4 H. L. R. 394 the opinion was expressed that one who murdered another in order to inherit the latter's property acquired the legal title, but should be treated as a constructive trustee for those who suffered by his crime. That is in accordance with well-known equitable principles and reach' s a just result. It would prevent the murderer from profiting by his crime, but would protect a purchaser for value without notice. Hitherto this view, while not adopted by the courts, has not been distinctly rejected by them. They have reached the sam i practical result, but by means which seem unjustifiable. In Riggsv. Pahner, 115 N. Y. 506, where the con- troversy was between the criminal and the representatives of the mur- dered man, the court read into the statute of wills a revocation clause. That would seem to carry judical legislation too far. No considerations of humanity and natural justice can authorize a court to read an excep- tion into a statute which is plain and definite in its terms. Shellenberger V. Bansom{ Nebraska, 1 891), 47 N. W. R. 700, followed the New York case and held that a purchaser from a murderer took nothing, because the murderer had nothing to give. Here an exception was read into the statute of descent, a course open to the same criticism as that just offered upon Riggs V. Palmer. In June, 1894, ^^ Nebraska court reviewed their decision (59 N. W. R. 935), and concluded to go to the opposite extreme. They decide, and correctly it would seem, that the purchaser from the murderer acquires a legal title. But they go on and hold that he gets not only the legal title, tut the beneficial interest as well, although he took with notice of the murder. This is a result which is not only " undesirable, " as the court say, but in violation of the plain equitable princip'C that one who acquires a legal title by fraud or other un on- scionable conduct shall be treated as a constructive trustee for thobC whom he has wronged. The court seems to feel bound by the terms of the statute of descent. But that misconception is probably, as pointed out in 4. H. L. R. 394, one of the results of the fusion of law and equity. It may be worth while to observe that the civil law, to which frequent reference is made in these cases, does not treat the will as revoked or the
