THE BARRIER MURDER TRIAL.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1466, 26 January 1887, Page 3

THE BARRIER MURDER TRIAL.

The trial of Caffrey and Penn has resulted, as every dispassionate reader of the evidence adduced in the Great Barrier Murder case, must have an-

ticipated it would, in a verdict of " Guilty " against both prisoners ; indeed, the evidence was so clear as to the deed, and its perpetrators, that at first it seemed very surprising that the jury should have had any difficulty whatever in arriving at a unanimous verdicr. Counsel for Caffrey admitted the guilt of Penn, and counsel for Penn admitted the guilt of Caffrey, and as where two persons are engaged in such an unlawful enterprise as that of abduction by force of arms, and murder is committed by one of them, both are, in the eyes of the law, equally guilty of that murder, it was a matter of complete indifference as to which fired the fatal shot. It would naturally be supposed that in such a case the jury would need but the very briefest consultation to ascertain that they had all arrived at one and the same conclusion, but the fact to the surprise of the public was otherwise. The explanation is, now to hand, and proves to be that one of the jurors stood out for a long time against a verdict of guilty as against both prisoners, on the ground that " they ought not to hang two rnen for one m,urder." He was evidently convinced that both were equally guilty, inasmuch as he is said to have proposed that lots should be drawn as to which of the two should, by the verdict, be brought under sentence of death, and which, in pursuance of his novel theory, should be let off. It is a foriuanate thing that he was at length persuaded to accept the reasonable view that if the prisoners were equally guilty they should be equally treated, or, at the least, there would have had to be a discharge of the jury and a fresh trial. The circumstances above stated may also account for the recommendation to mercy, which, as it seems to us, without the smallest shadow of justification, accompanied the verdict, as it may have been, and probably was, a concession by the other eleven to the obstinate and obtuse juror above referred to. *

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