Now it was up to Florie's biased judge to pass sentence on her. English judges follow a tradition when they are going to impose the death sentence. They wear a black cap before they speak. As Justice Stephen was about to pass sentence, he put on his black cap. There was a gasp in the courtroom. Florence Maybrick was sentenced to be hung until she was dead.

Because Britain did not have a Court of Criminal Appeals in 1889, Florence was doomed. Criminal defendants who lost cases - even if the trial was a travesty, the judge was insane and counsel was incompetent - had no recourse. There was no place to appeal a blatantly unfair and wrong result. Only the queen could save Florie Maybrick.

But Queen Victoria was not known as a compassionate monarch who regularly pardoned criminals. Not until the public staged a huge groundswell of support - with multiple petitions for clemency - did the Queen act. Four days before Florie was scheduled to hang, Queen Victoria spared her life. Florence was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

For all those fifteen years, Florence Maybrick did not see her children. Michael Maybrick saw to that initially. When the children were old enough to make decisions for themselves, they continued on the same path. Despite their mother's efforts, they had nothing to do with her. After her husband died, Florence never saw her children again.

But Florence Maybrick did not suffer in vain. Extreme cases, accompanied by gross incompetency, sometimes shake a system to its core. The Maybrick case shook England's criminal justice system to the core. The facts presented a compelling reason to establish a court of appeals. A contemporary (1891) book on the trial, Treatise on the Maybrick Case by Alexander William MacDougall, could not have stated the case better.

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