DEATH SENTENCE PASSED.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20091, 21 November 1930, Page 12

DEATH SENTENCE PASSED.

| THE FITZROY MURDER. i J TOWNSEND FOUND GUILTY. 1 j 'I-S'E3S ASSOCIATION TULKGP-Aii , NEW PLYMOUTH, November 20. Sentence of death was passed to-day on Alexander Townsend, found guilty of the' murder of his wife, Cora Alice Townsend, at Fitzroy. Mr L. M. Moss, for the defence, urged that the legal insanity of Townsend had I been proved. When he had taken drink ihe always went over the same grievj ances and imagined wrongs. The mur- ) der was not planned, but was due to a sudden insane impulse. ' Mr C. H. Weston, for the Crown, said ' that the question was one of sanity or ! insanity. The crime took ten minutes and much control was exhibited. It was ' not a Eudden impulse as the intention

v/as formed hours before that if an agreement were not reached he wouh! ahoot his wife and himself. The rea! caUie was not insanity, but drink. His Honour's Summing Uy. humming up, his Honour said the case for the Crown had been put by Mr C. H. Weston with scrupulous fairness. The 'defence had been conducted with great skill and ability, and nothing more could have been said or done, nor could what had been said and done been more ably said and done than had been done by Mr L. M. Moss. The defence, said his Honour, relied for proof of insanity on the circumstances of the family "life of this man, the evidence of his moodiness and such things. On that there was also medical evidence for the defence and that in rebuttal. His Honour explained the position in New Zealand law as to insanity and delusions, and after referring to the possible delusions from which accused was said to have been suffering said that even if they had existed in fact they were not such as to justify the commission of this crime, so that any defence of delusional insanity was not open to the accused in this case. The real test of the case was that laid down in the Crimes Act as to a person at the time being capable of understanding the quality and nature of the act, and whether it was a wrongful act. "Are yon satisfied," said his Tonour, "remembering that it is on the defence to prove it, that this man was incapable of that?"

i His Honour explained the difference between medical and legal insanity, and I said medical insanity did not absolve a ! pc-rsid from responsibility for criminal [ acts. Unless the jury could find that the accused was at the time of the | crime labouring under a disease of the | mind which rendered him incapable of understanding the nature and quality of his act, and that it was wrong, it was their duty, however unpleasant, to retarn a verdict of guilty of murder. The jury arrived at its verdict in a little over an hour. Immediately the verdict of guilty was announced, his Honour passed sentence of death, Townsend having had nothing to say. Throughout the ordeal Townsend remained apparently calm.-As he stepped down from the dock he said quietly, "Very nice indeed."