SUPREME COURT Rehearing of arson charge ordered

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32967, 13 July 1972, Page 11

SUPREME COURT Rehearing of arson charge ordered

The rehearing of a charge laid against a man after an explosion at a detective’s house in Invercargill on June 4 was ordered by Mr Justice Woodhouse in the Supreme Court yesterday. Michael Patrick Murray, aged 22, unemployed (Mr A. K. Grant), appealed against conviction on a charge of arson for which he was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment by Mr T. G. Maxwell, S.M. Mr Grant asked for the conviction to be quashed on the ground that there was no evidence from which the Court could find that the appellant was party to the commission of an offence.

A convicted person was entitled to know why he had been convicted, but because of the brevity of the Magistrate’s findings this was not possible, said Mr Grant.

His Honour said he did not know just what caused the Magistrate to reach the decision he made, but it appeared that because the appellant was found in highly suspicious circumstances he must have been a party to the offence.

“What I am troubled about is, what did the Magistrate decide?” said his Honour. “This is a serious charge and I don’t think I should start guessing about it.” His Honour said the problem arose from the fact that at the end of the prosecution evidence the Magistrate was asked to rule whether there was a case to answer.

The Magistrate then pointed to the fact that the appellant had been present at the scene of an offence for which two others had pleaded guilty and on the evidence before him—namely, that there was an explosion and the appellant was present—he held that there was a case to answer.

The appellant then elected not to give evidence and he was convicted. His Honour said it was not difficult to understand that the pressure of work on a busy magistrate would often persuade him to give a rather abbreviated decision, but this particular decision was so abbreviated that he was unable to decide what caused the Magistrate to convict the appellant. He ruled that the proper course of action was a rehearing as soon as convenient before one of the magistrates in Dunedin.