ASSAULTS ON WOMEN.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 130, 3 June 1901, Page 4

ASSAULTS ON WOMEN.

RECENT CASES.

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.)

WELLINGTON, this day.

The battle still rages with undiminished fierceness around the Pierard case. The "Times,"' in an article which clearly speaks the mind of the Department of Justice, condemns as uncalled for and improper the extra judical comments of the Judges. Reference is made to "Certain judges who desired to secure a conviction when it was their duty to accept dispassionately the decision of three separate juries." The idea that political or religious influence had any share in these results is scouted as grotesque, and it challenges production of proofs of the assertion to the contrary. It is argued that the judges have no right to either condemn or commend the results of a jury's deliberations. The article goes on to^say, "We observe that Mr Justice Conolly, of Auckland, has just been indulging in this habit, which might be described as impertinent. On iinding fault with the decision of a common jury in a case of alleged sexual offence, Mr Justice Edwards, a few days ago at Napier, expressed similar disapproval with regard to a verdict in a case of the same description. ''If the judges," continues the writer, "were not as blind as owls, they -would see they are altogether wrong in their attitude and actions." It is argued that: the law in connection with sexual offences is repugnant to the common sense of the people, and that recent sentences in such cases have been shocking1 in their severity, and that this, as shown by historical examples, tends. to defeat itself, by rendering juries reluctant to convict. Finally the "Times" declares that, "the whole outcry has been raised by a small minority with perverted views of human nature, and there is more than a suspicion that the agitation is being engineered for political, purposes by a certain high dignitary, whose anti-Seddon proclivities are well known."