The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1877.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 64, 27 February 1877, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1877.

Human tribunals are but fallible ; judges and jurors although upright and conscientious men, who use every care in the discharge of their high and important duties, are still liable to err, and hence the caution so often heard in our Criminal Courts, " if you have any reasonable doubt of the prisoner's guilt it is your duty to give him the benefit of that doubt, and acquit him." Notwithstanding this, notwithstanding the many safeguards with which British law hedges in life and personal liberty, yet, through errors of the administrators of law, liberty, nay even life itself, is at times violated. When a man. according to law, has been deprived of his liberty, and that he ought not to have been convicted, and that he has suffered, and is suffering wrongfully, reparation can and is made as soon as possible ; the man's liberty is restored, and such compensation as is judged sufficient to atone for the injury he has sustained is made him. But when the death punishment has been inflicted, even though it should afterwards be proved that the sufferer was absolutely innocent, reparation becomes impossible, for life once taken can never be restored. Before, however, the death sentence is carried into execution, another safeguard intervenes ; the case is submitted to the consideration of the Governor-in-Council, and it is not until it is intimated to the authorities that His Excellency sees no reason to interfere with the execution of the sentence that it is carried into effect. Despite these wise precautions, cases have arisen, where innocent persons have paid the forfeit of their lives as an expiation for crimes they never committed, or where, although the culprit had taken human life, he had done so under circumstances, which reduce their charge from murder to manslaughter. To constitute murder, there must be malice prepense ; whereas, in the hot blood of passion, a man may slay another without feeling that malice which is necessary in law to constitute murder. We have read with the greatest care the evidence given at the trial of the unfortunate man Curtin who Avas lately executed at Auckland for murder, and after the most serious consideration, we have failed in finding proof of that malice without which murder cannot be committed. That Curtin committed manslaughter which deserved severe punishment we admit, but we cannot bring ourselves to think

that what lie did was worthy of, death, and that this we believe is shared by others, is proved by the strenuous efforts made to save him, even up to the last ; nay, more, the culprit's behaviour on the scaffold, in some measure, confirms'this belief. With death staring him in the face, with the full consciousness that in a : few moments he would be in the presence of The Eternal, Curtin declared, that he bore his victim no malice, that he did not intend to kill him, but that they quarrelled and fought with' sticks, a proceeding which eventuated in the untimely death of the one, whilst the other was reserved for a short time only to suffer a felon's doom. In making these remarks we have no wish to cast any reflection upon the judge and jury who tried the case, or the Executive whose final fiat sent Curtin to the scaffold; we believe that they have acted conscientiously, but at the same time we think that they have greviously erred. Curtin is now beyond the reach of human power, but for the future it is to be hoped that this will be borne in mind— "it is better that ten guilty persons should escape than one innocent suffer," and innocent of wilful murder Curtin certainly was.