THE PICTON MURDER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 25, 31 January 1933, Page 3

THE PICTON MURDER.

APPEAL TO BE HEARD

THREE JUDGES—THREE DAYS. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Monday. The hearing by the Court of Appeal of the applications made by counsel for Edward Tarrant, who is under sentence of death for the murder at Picton of James Flood, is set down for Wednesday. Three judges will be on the Bench and three days have been set down for the hearing. The House of Representatives put through the Judicature Amendment Bill, the primary purpose of which was to enable the Court of Appeal to meet at an early date to hear the appeal of Tarrant, on Thursday last.

After Tarrant had been sentenced to death, Mr. Evan Parry, who defended accused, was granted leave to apply to the Court of Appeal for a new trial, and ulso to reserve certain questions of law for the consideration of that Court. The appeal for a new trial was made on the ground that the verdict was against the weight of evidence. The questions reserved for the opinion of the Court were: (1) Whether there was any evidence upon which the jury was entitled in law to find accused guilty; (2) whether the conviction should not be quashed accordingly, or, alternatively (3) whether, at the trial, the judge wrongly directed the jury (a) upon the evidence as to the time when the murder was committed, (b) in making use of a simile comparing the various facts alleged by the prosecution to the strands of a cord or the sticks in a faggot, and (c) upon the question whether there was any evidence that' the banknotes changed by accused had belonged to the dead man, and whether a new trial should not be ordered accordingly.