APPROVER, or PROVER, in the law of England, is a person who had been an accomplice in the perpetration of a crime, but who is admitted to give evidence against the prisoner. It had not so simple and intelligible a meaning him the ancient practice of the criminal law, in which lipproreinent was a kind of confession of a complicated nature. Where a person in a prosecution fOr treason or felony confessed the fact before pleading to the indictment, and, at tire same time, accused others, his accomplices, of the same crime. in order to obtain his pardon, he was called an A. or P. But as the condition of the pardon be thus expected was the conviction of the accomplice he accused, if that failed, the A. received judgment of death upon his own confession. If, on the other hand, the accused accomplice was found guilty, the A. was entitle 1 to his pardon ex debit() fimtitite. But "this course of admitting approvements." says Blackstone, writing about a century ago, .",hatla.long, been,disused; for the truth was, as,Sir,Matthew Halm observes, that more mischief arose to good men by these kinds of approvements, upon false and malicious accusations of desperate villains, than benefit to the public by the discovery and conviction of real offenders; and, therefore, in the times when such appeals were most frequently admitted, great strictness and nicety were held therein; though, since their discontinuance, the doctrine of approvements is become a matter of more curiosity than use." The modern practice is to admit accomplices to give evidence for the prosecution, or, as it is said, to become queen's evidence, upon an implied promise of pardon, on condition of their making a full and fair confession of the whole truth. The admission, however, of an accomplice to give evidence 4ttinst his fellows, requires the previous sanction of the judges of jail delivery, and a motion is usually made at the trial to the judge for leave to admit the accomplice for that purpose. The testimony of an accomplice is in all cases, however, regarded with just suspicion; and unless hisstatement is corroborated in some material part by unimpeachable evidence, the jury are usually advised by the judge to acquit the prisoner; and if the accomplice, after having confessed the crime, and being admitted as queen's evidence, does not satisfy the condition on which he was so received by failing to give full information without equivocation, reservation, or fraud, he then forfeits all claim to protection, and may be tried, convicted, and pun ished on his own confession. Accordingly, upon a trial at York, towards the com mencement of the present century, before the late Mr. Justice Buller, the accomplice denied in his evidence all that he had before confessed, upon which the prisoner was acquitted. But the judge ordered an indictment to be preferred against the accomplice foe the same crime, and on his previous confession, and other circumstances, he was con victed and executed.
The term in the law of Scotland analogous to that of A. is sodas criminis, and the principles on which such socius is admitted, and on which his evidence is left to the jury, are the same as in England. But the criminal courts in Scotland go further in protecting and assurino- safety to the approver than the English practice does. Sir Archibald Alison, iu his Practice of the Criminal Law of Scotland, vol. ii., p. 453, says: " It has long been an established principle in our law, that by the very act of calling the socium, and putting him in the box, the prosecutor debars himself from all title to molest him for the future with relation to the matter libeled. This is always explained to the witness by the presiding judge as soon as he appears in court, and consequently he gives his testimony under a feeling of absolute security as to the effect which it may have upon himself. If, therefore, on any future occasion the witness should be subjected to a prosecution on account of any of the matters contained in the libel on which he was examined, the proceedings would be at once quashed by the supreme court. This privilege is absolute, and altogether independent of the prevarication or unwillingness with which the witness may give his testimony. .Justice, indeed, may often be defeated by a witness retracting his previous disclosures, or refusino. to make any confession after he put into the box; but it would be much more put in hazard if the witness was sensible that his future safety depended upon the extent to which he spoke out against his associate at the bar. The only remedy, therefore, in such a case, is committal of the witness for contempt or prevarication, or indicting him for perjury, if there are sufficient grounds for any of these proceedings. In this respect the security of the socius, and the safeguard against the contamination of the sources of evidence, is much stronger in this country than in England, where it is held that the circumstance of having been adduced by the crown is not a bar to trial, but only the foundation for a recommendation to the crown for mercy, and is entirely dependent on the witnesses making a full and fair dis closure." And Sir Archibald mentions a case where a soldier, who was adduced as an A. or sodas, and who was under confinement as a military delinquent for the same offense, was nevertheless allowed to give evidence; and upon its being suggested as an objection to the soldier's being admitted as a witness, that he would still be open to be tried by a court-martial, the court declared that they had the power to protect him from such an ordeal, and that they would not fail to interfere on his behalf, if he were in any way endangered in consequence of his evidence.
It was on the evidence of an accomplice named William Hare, that Burke the notorious criminal was convicted before the high court of justiciary in 1828. See this Case noticed previously in ANATOMY.