JURY PROTESTS AS ACCUSED LEAVES

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30739, 1 May 1965, Page 7

JURY PROTESTS AS ACCUSED LEAVES

(NZ. Press Association—Copyright)

BRISBANE, April 29. A man charged with attempting to murder a woman has been freed although the jury trying him decided on a verdict which should have placed the man in a mental institution.

The trial ended in confusion with the accused walking out of the dock and some members of the jury protesting against his release. The man was freed when the jury foreman did not add to a not guilty verdict a rider to the effect that the jury considered the man to be of unsound mind. The rider would have meant the man being confined in a mental institution until he was considered fit for release.

The foreman explained the mix-up today. “We decided unanimously to find the man not guilty because of being of unsound mind,” he said. "We thought that when I was asked what our decision was I would say ‘not guilty’ and then the court official would ask me ‘on what grounds’. “That was when I thought I had to say ‘because of being of unsound mind.’ “But he didn’t ask me that. When the man was released and we were dimissed we just stood there for a bit. The man can never be tried again on the same charge.” The crown cannot appeal against the verdict—it can only lodge appeals against sentences passed on defendants who are found guilty.

The judge gave the jury a solid 35-minute summing up on possible verdicts they could bring in. One verdict, they could bring in. he told them was “not guilty because of being of unsound mind.” When the jury reached its verdict the jurymen filed back in the court and the foreman rose. He was asked what the jury’s verdict was on the attempted murder charge. He renlied “not guilty,” Then the foreman was asked how the jury found the defendant on a lesser charge of causing grevious bodily harm with intent to cause grevious bodily harm—to which he also replied, “not guilty.” At this stage the judge discharged the prisoner and the jury. The foreman and some other jury members protested. The foreman asked a court bailif, “what about his being of unsound mind?” But, after a legal discus-

sion, before which some jury members had to be called back to the Court house, it was decided that the verdict of “not guilty” as delivered by the foreman must stand. 1

The two charges against the man arose out of an incident in which a woman was allegedly slashed in the throat with a broken bottle. Medical evidence was that she would have died if she had not received surgical treatment to stem the flow of blood.