Hung jury in attempted murder charge hearing

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33095, 9 December 1972, Page 3

Hung jury in attempted murder charge hearing

After deliberating for five hours and threequarters, a jury in the Supreme Court yesterday failed to agree on a verdict on alternative charges against Michael Ewan McKenzie, aged 17, an apprentice carpenter, of the attempted murder of a police constable, Vincent Paul Nolan, at Ashburton on September 15, and wounding Constable Nolan with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. The jury retired at 12.35 p.m. and returned at 4.52 p.m. to ask his Honour to read the definition of insanity in the Crimes Act At 6.10 p.m., the jury was brought back into Court, and the foreman announced that there was no prospect of reaching a unanimous verdict. Mr Justice Roper discharged the jury and remanded McKenzie in custody for a new trial at the sessions beginning on February 5. Mr N. W. Williamson

appeared for the Crown, and Mr R. G. Sinclair, of Ashburton, for McKenzie, who pleaded not guilty to both charges. The trial began on Wednesday afternoon. The Crown called 20 witnesses and the defence one, a psychiatrist. The defence of insanity was raised.

Evidence was given for the defence by Dr W. D. Wilson, a consultant psychiatrist, of Timaru, that at the time of the shooting McKenzie was suffering from schizophrenia, that he did not understand the nature and quality of his actions and that those actions were morally wrong. Yesterday, the Crown called two psychiatrists to give evidence in rebuttal. Dr H. E. Williams, a specialist in psychological medicine at Sunnyside Hospital, said that he had examined the accused on a number of occasions and the accused was psychologically tested under his control. The witness found no evidence of mental illness. He was capable of knowing that an act was morally wrong. Dr W. C. Gordon, registrar of Sunnyside Hospital, said that he had interviews with the accused, and examined the results of the tests he underwent. “I can find no evidence at all to suggest that the accused was not capable of understanding the nature and quality of the act he carried out, and I feel sure he did know the act was morally wrong,” Dr Gordon said. Alcohol consumed Accused had developed patterns of anti-social behaviour in the last few months. Considerable amounts of alcohol had been consumed by accused on week-end trips, and several times he behaved in an extremely erratic fashion. Two weeks before the shooting the accused went to a party in Methven where he drank a large amount of beer and passed out. The accused remembered nothing from then until he woke in bed next morning. The witness was not sure whether this was the occasion when the accused’s mother found him lying in the road. The accused told the witness of another incident this year when the accused and another boy, under the influence of alcohol, attempted to chop down a power pole and were apprehended by the police while doing so. The accused said: “I didn’t really know what I was doing.” There was another incident when the accused drank large amounts of beer and some spirits, and that was followed by two spells of complete blankness. The accused had a blank period from the time he got into the car at Rakaia until he was being driven along the main street in Ashburton towards his home. Group leadership Asked to comment on Dr Wilson’s opinion of a lack of motive for the shooting, Dr Gordon said: “From what the accused told me, there was a considerable amount of wrangling in his group about who would make decisions for the group—who would be leader.”

On the night of the incident, before leaving for Rakaia, Laurie McCormick accused McKenzie, in front of McCormick’s parents, of causing him to get speeding tickets. The accused admitted that made him very angry and resentful, and those feelings persisted until they were well on their way to Rakaia. At one point, the group wanted McCormick to stop the car to pick up some girls, and he refused. Again, the accused’s resentment towards McCormick was asserted, Dr Gordon said. “It seems to me that the accused, in an attempt to win back some favour in the eyes of the group made a reference to shooting someone, followed by the remark: ‘I

think I will shoot a cop.’ I believe there was considerable discussion in the car that night about guns and shooting. I think this laid the basis for the actions which followed. When the accused was laughed at by his colleagues, this made him more determined to do something silly, and in this case something very dangerous,” said Dr Gordon. ‘lmpulsive person’ The accused was an impulsive person, and himself had said that he acted first and thought afterwards. That was the frame of mind he was in when he got the shotgun and proceeded towards the police station. Just outside his house, he hesitated, and the accused told the witness that he did that because he knew what he was going to do was wrong. There was further hesitation at the police station steps, when the accused ducked behind the station to avoid car headlights. Referring to a test which showed that accused had a high level of schizophrenia, Dr Gordon said that the recognised authority for the interpretation of the test said that a high level of schizophrenia on that score was also very common in prison inmates, delinquents, adolescents, neurotics, as well as schizophrenics. By itself, the high level did not necessarily mean that a person suffered from schizophrenia. When the accused was asked what he would have done if he had found Sergeant Wheeler in the police station, the accused replied that he would not have shot him, because he knew and liked him. Had there been more than one policeman in the station, the accused said, he wouldn’t have shot anyone. Effects of alcohol

To Mr Sinclair, Dr Gordon said that alcohol brought out the accused’s anti-social tendencies, which normally he

was able to control. The accused had said that when he drank he did not care. Alcohol loosened the accused up, made him less aware of normal behaviour, and made him more ready to act in an impulsive way. It reduced his understanding of social responsibilities, but not to the point where he could not differentiate between right and wrong. The combination of liquor and the influence of his friends in the car was a dangerous one for the accused, as events had shown. Your conclusion is that without the liquor and the influence of his friends this would never have happened? —Correct. The witness was firmly of the. opinion that the accused was not suffering from any mental illness. ‘Easily led’ Dr Gordon said that he was sure that the young persons in the car with the accused before the shooting played a more active role in the discussion than they disclosed in evidence. The accused was trying hard to be a leader, but it was a vain hope. He was very easily led. The accused did not know Constable Nolan. You didn’t discover any animosity in the accused towards any particular policeman.—No, but there was general animosity in the group towards the police in Ashburton. Summing up His Honour, in his summing up for the jury, said that there was probably no more difficult task than to sit in judgment on a teenager charged with a most serious crime. Older people tended to regard persons of McKenzie’s age as little more than children, incapable of wilful, vicious and brutal conduct, and, if anything, in need of protection themselves. However, it was a tragic fact of modern society that that was not always the case.