DEATH SENTENCE

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 33, 2 November 1929, Page 13

DEATH SENTENCE

DUNEDIN MURDER TRIAL ENDED RECOMMENDATION OF MERCY By Telegraph.— Press Association. Dunedin, November 1. The trial of William Henry Biaunitni on a charge of murdering his wife, Dorothy Deans Brauman, at St. Clair on August 7, was concluded in the Supreme Court yesterday. Brauman was found guilty. In the afternoon counsel addressed the jury, and His Honour (Mr. Justice Kennedy) summed up the evidence and stated the law on the matter in an address extending over the dinner adjournment. Mr. White, in his address for accused, said that the theory of the defence was that accused was labouring under delusions and that he was goaded to desperation by the conduct of his wife. He had been in the vicinity of the esplanade on the night in question with the intention of taking his own life when he had stumbled accidentally on the joy-riding party. Accused had lost control of himself, had been carried away, and counsel submitted that he did not know that he was doing wrong. The Crown’ Prosecutor, in reply, said that, it was obvious from the evidence that on the day before the tragedy accused had found the place where his wife was working, and on the following day he was found haunting the same spot with a revolver in his pocket. The onus rested on accused to establish to the jury that he was insane in the legal sense at the time of the murder.

The jury retired at 8.15 and returned at 9.35 with a verdict of guilty of murder, with a strong recommendation to mercy, on the ground of the medical evidence regarding prisoner’s mental abnormality. In answer to His Honour, who asked prisoner if he had anything to say why sentence of death should not be passed on him. prisoner replied: “I do not remember about it. Your Honour.” The Judge then sentenced prisoner to death, and said he would pass on the jury’s recommendations to the proper authorities.