LIFE SENTENCE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23269, 11 February 1939, Page 2 (Supplement)

LIFE SENTENCE

CASE OF AN EPILEPTIC 13 JUDGES TO HEAR APPEAL The case of a young Edinburgh gardener, a subject of epileptic fits, who was sentenced to penal servitude for life, in connection with the death of a woman, is to bo considered by a Bench of 13 Judges. This was tho decision of the Scottish Court of Criminal Appeal, in Edinburgh, when James Boyd Kirkwood appealed against his sentonco on the ground that it was excessive. Kirkwood was originally charged with tho murder of Jean Powell, whose body was found buried in the garden of a mansion house in the West End of Edinburgh. A plea of guilty to culpable homicide was accepted. Mr. Gordon Stott (for Kirkwood) submitted that, in view of the wholo circumstances and in particular the mental condition of Kirkwood, the life sentence was so excessive as to bo in itself a miscarriago of justice. The sentence was one of appalling severity. Ho had no doubt the day would come when such a sentence on a man of that mental strength would be regarded as barbarous. Mr. L, Hilly Watson, advocate-depute, said that what probably weighed with the Judge at tho trial was the extraordinary brutality of the crime. In addition, tho medical evidence was clear that this man was of a type who might indulge in crime of that nature without any warning, and ono who was most dangerous to tho public.