# Summa Iniuria

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***Summa Iniuria: Ein Pitaval der Justizirrtümer*** (***Summa Iniuria: A Pitaval of Miscarriages of Justice***) is a collection of *[causes célèbres](/source/Cause_c%C3%A9l%C3%A8bre)* by the Swiss author Hans M. Sutermeister. It is considered “one of the most detailed documentations about [miscarriages of justice](/source/Miscarriage_of_justice) in the German language”.[1] It is inspired by [Voltaire](/source/Voltaire)′s early activism against French miscarriages of justice of puritan origin, as well as by [Arthur Conan Doyle](/source/Arthur_Conan_Doyle)′s criminalistic approaches.[2]

## Plot summary

The book proposes a legal reform for Switzerland which has never been realized because of political controversies. The [Maria Popescu](/source/Maria_Popesco), [Pierre Jaccoud](/source/Jaccoud_case), and [Vera Brühne](/source/Vera_Br%C3%BChne) cases are discussed in detail, as Sutermeister was involved in the criminal researches. The [George Edalji](/source/George_Edalji) case serves, among others, to illustrate the issue of faulty expertises. The main part consists of the so–called “Hirschberg test”, based on [Max Hirschbergs](/source/Max_Hirschberg) categories of causes of judicial errors.

### Hirschberg test

The “Hirschberg test” begins with critique against the preliminary inquiries concerning [Josef Issels](/source/Josef_Issels) and [Bruno Gröning](/source/Bruno_Gr%C3%B6ning).

The phenomenon of mis-identification are illustrated by the [Joseph Lesurques](/source/Courrier_de_Lyon_case), Billy Armstrong, [Adolph Beck](/source/Adolf_Beck_case), [Leopold Hilsner](/source/Hilsner_Affair), [Menahem Mendel Beilis](/source/Menahem_Mendel_Beilis), [Sacco and Vanzetti](/source/Sacco_and_Vanzetti), [Joe Hill](/source/Joe_Hill_(activist)), [Caryl Chessman](/source/Caryl_Chessman), Charles Townsend, [James Hanratty](/source/James_Hanratty), [John Dickman](/source/John_Dickman), [Rubin Carter](/source/Rubin_Carter), Jerome Frank, [Will Purvis](/source/Will_Purvis), [Anna Anderson](/source/Anna_Anderson) cases, a large list of experiences which led to wrongful court decisions and which serve to illustrate also other items of the “Hirschberg test”.

The issue of uncritical assessment of [guilty plea](/source/Plea) is illustrated by the cases of [Timothy Evans](/source/Timothy_Evans), [Harold Israel](/source/Harold_Israel), [Marinus van der Lubbe](/source/Marinus_van_der_Lubbe), [Albert DeSalvo](/source/Albert_DeSalvo), [Jack the Ripper](/source/Jack_the_Ripper), [Mata Hari](/source/Mata_Hari), [Renate von Natzmer](/source/Renate_von_Natzmer), [Danny Escobedo](/source/Escobedo_v._Illinois), [Richard Speck](/source/Richard_Speck), and [Alfred George Hinds](/source/Alfred_George_Hinds), among others.

In the chapter about the impact of fellow convicts on dispensation of justice is considered the judgment of [Barbara Graham](/source/Barbara_Graham); and concerning the witness account, the [Felix Fechenbach](/source/Felix_Fechenbach) case, the [Guillaume Affair](/source/Guillaume_Affair), and the cases of [Antoine Argoud](/source/Antoine_Argoud), [Beate Klarsfeld](/source/Serge_and_Beate_Klarsfeld), Milan Bogunovic, [Baader-Meinhof](/source/Red_Army_Faction), [Raoul Villain](/source/Raoul_Villain), [Anton Graf von Arco auf Valley](/source/Anton_Graf_von_Arco_auf_Valley), and [Maximilian Kolbe](/source/Maximilian_Kolbe). In the cases of [Marguerite Steinheil](/source/Marguerite_Steinheil), [Leo Frank](/source/Leo_Frank), [Samuel Sheppard](/source/Sam_Sheppard), [Karl Stauffer](/source/Karl_Stauffer-Bern), and [Ronald Light](/source/Green_Bicycle_Case), the lies of the accused would have offered guilty proof.

[Circumstantial evidence](/source/Circumstantial_evidence) lawsuits are illustrated by the cases of [Frederick Seddon](/source/Frederick_Seddon), [Marie Besnard](/source/Marie_Besnard), [Steven Truscott](/source/Steven_Truscott), [Graham Frederick Young](/source/Graham_Young), and some [white-collar crimes](/source/White-collar_crime). Suggestibility and emotional biases of the jury as causes of wrongful court decisions are showed by the cases of Jesse Hill Ford, [Joan Little](/source/Joan_Little), and [Alger Hiss](/source/Alger_Hiss).

The relationship between miscarriages of justice and [public morality](/source/Public_morality) are analysed through the cases of [Henriette Caillaux](/source/Henriette_Caillaux), [Ruth Ellis](/source/Ruth_Ellis), [Sir Ewan Forbes, 11th Baronet](/source/Sir_Ewan_Forbes,_11th_Baronet), [Arthur Gray](/source/Hawkhurst_Gang), [Horst Schumann](/source/Horst_Schumann), [Joan Berry](/source/Joan_Barry_(American_actress)), Baader-Meinhof, [Timothy Leary](/source/Timothy_Leary), [Patricia Hearst](/source/Patty_Hearst), [Kurt Gerstein](/source/Kurt_Gerstein), [Paul Grüninger](/source/Paul_Gr%C3%BCninger), [Rudolf Roessler](/source/Rudolf_Roessler), [David Frankfurter](/source/David_Frankfurter), [Pyotr Grigorenko](/source/Pyotr_Grigorenko), [Vladimir Bukovsky](/source/Vladimir_Bukovsky), [Derek Bentley](/source/Derek_Bentley_case), [Edith Thompson](/source/Edith_Thompson_and_Frederick_Bywaters), [Ivar Kreuger](/source/Ivar_Kreuger), [Stavisky Affair](/source/Stavisky_Affair), [Harald Feller](/source/Harald_Feller), [Carl Lutz](/source/Carl_Lutz), [Viola Liuzzo](/source/Viola_Liuzzo), [Wilma Montesi](/source/Wilma_Montesi), [Horst Wessel](/source/Horst_Wessel), among many others.

The case of [Jacques Isorni](/source/Jacques_Isorni) serves to illustrate certain relationship between law and ethics.

The author concludes by briefly analysing other aspects of misleading or other judgments revising the [John Thomas Scopes](/source/John_T._Scopes), [Carl von Ossietzky](/source/Carl_von_Ossietzky), [Theodor Lessing](/source/Theodor_Lessing), [Bruno Lüdke](/source/Bruno_L%C3%BCdke), [Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Nazi Germany](/source/Persecution_of_Jehovah's_Witnesses_in_Nazi_Germany), [Hans Paasche](/source/Hans_Paasche), [Ludwig Quidde](/source/Ludwig_Quidde), and [Weiße Rose](/source/White_Rose) cases.

## Reception

The book has the appearance of a patchwork obtained by stitching together legal and controversial political parts, as has been criticized by German jurist [Klaus Volk](/source/Klaus_Volk)[3] and the Austrian [Nazi](/source/Nazism) medical writer [Otto Scrinzi](/source/Otto_Scrinzi).[4] For the German criminal law expert [Karl Peters](/source/Karl_Peters_(jurist)), on the other hand, the book represents a milestone in the series of works about miscarriages of justice which comes to terms with many failures of post-World War II criminal judgments in Germany and Switzerland, therefore completing a certain continuing effort which has its history in the works of Erich Sello, [Max Alsberg](/source/Max_Alsberg), Albert Hellwig, Max Hirschberg, and Heinrich Jagusch.[5]

## References

1. Gilliéron, G. *Strafbefehlsverfahren und plea bargaining als Quelle von Fehlurteilen.* Zurich: Schulthess, 2010, p. 15. ISBN 978-3-7255-6021-9

1. Sutermeister H M. *Summa Iniuria.* 1976, pp. 38–40 and 119–121.

1. [Klaus Volk](/source/Klaus_Volk). "Buchbesprechung: Sutermeister, H. M.. Summa Iniuria." In: *Monatsschrift für Kriminologie und Strafrechtsreform*. Jahrgang 60, 1977, S.388.

1. [Otto Scrinzi](/source/Otto_Scrinzi). "Buch im Brennpunkt: Unvermeidliche Justizirrtümer." In: *Ärztliche Praxis: Die Zeitung des Arztes in Klinik und Praxis*. 1976/1977

1. [Karl Peters](/source/Karl_Peters_(jurist)). "Sutermeister, Hans M.: Summa Iniuria. Ein Pitaval der Justizirrtümer. Basel 1976." In: *Zeitschrift für die gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft*. [26, Vol. 88, n. 1, 1976, pp. 993–995](http://www.reference-global.com/doi/pdf/10.1515/zstw.1976.88.4.978)[dead link], [doi:10.1515/zstw.1976.88.4.978](https://doi.org/10.1515/zstw.1976.88.4.978)).

## External links

- [*Summa Iniuria: Ein Pitaval der Justizirrtümer*](https://www.e-helvetica.nb.admin.ch/directAccess?callnumber=nbdig-16252) accessible at the [Swiss National Library](/source/Swiss_National_Library).
- About the origins of the book: [Gerhard Mauz](/source/Gerhard_Mauz): [*Schuldig, weil wir keinen anderen haben: SPIEGEL-Reporter Gerhard Mauz über die Fehlurteilsjäger Hans Martin Sutermeister und Gustav Adolf Neumann.*](http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-46272426.html) *[Der Spiegel](/source/Der_Spiegel)*, 1965, no. 18, p. 116 and 118.

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