VERDICT OF JURY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 117, 20 May 1941, Page 9

VERDICT OF JURY

INTERPRETATION BY COURT

The legal effect of a verdict returned by a jury in the Supreme Court yesterday afternoon was argued before the Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers) today. The jury found Jack Norman Eager, a stable-hand, aged 38, who faced a charge of stealing a watch, chain, and pendant, valued at £12, "guilty on his own admission, but recommended him to the leniency of the Court because we feel he did not have wilful criminal intent." * Eager, for whom Mr. R. Hardie Boys appeared, was charged with stealing the articles from Leslie Thomas Daly at Carterton. He admitted finding them and knowing whose they were. He said, however, that he did not communicate with r the owner, and gave the pendant away. Mr. Boys quoted authorities on the subject today, and submitted that the verdict was one of not guilty. His Honour said the matter might be open to some doubt. If the circumstances had been different he might have stated a case for the Court of Appeal, but if the man were guilty he would merely grant probation and not send him to prison. "The jury have found him guilty on his own admission," said his Honour. "If he did not have wilful criminal intent they should not have found him guilty. I think, on the whole, the safer course is to interpret the verdict as one of not guilty. I confess that I do that with some hesitation, but it is not a case in which any good object is to be gained by cai-rying the matter further. If there were previous convictions and the man was of bad or indifferent-1 character I might have looked at the matter more closely." The prisoner was discharged. Mr. C. H. Weston, K.C., and Mr. W. R. Birks appeared for the Crown.