VAGARIES OF LAW COURTS

Evening Star, Issue 22047, 5 June 1935, Page 12

VAGARIES OF LAW COURTS

AN UNREASONABLE PRISONER The judge in Brisbane who was proceeding to sentence a man before the court for an offence of which he had been found not guilty because the foreman of the jury had dropped his voice at “ not ” and had made a loud noise in pronouncing “ guilty ” is one of the vagaries of law courts of which there are many stories,told in New South Wales (writes the Sydney correspondent of the Melbourne 1 Age '). More than one judge has remarked on the lack of correct enunciation on the part of jurymen elected as foremen, and some seem to think that one of the qualifications for such a position should be a knowledge of' elocution so as to make known the verdict by the correct inflection of the voice. Some prisoners have been known to open the door of the dock and step out at the slightest whisper of the word “ not,” whilst not a few loiter behind the bars in a state of wonderment as to what is likely to happen next. A case is known of an innocent person asking the police for an extra night’s lodgings as he had nowhere to go and nothing to go with. But the most extraordinary court scene in the world’s history is recorded in New South Wales. It was in a police court on an occasion when three justices of the peace were needed to sit on a case of horse stealing. A man who afterwards became a big man in this State was appointed a justice of the peace. He was socially unpopular, and is said to have had a record of some sort. He entered the court after the two other magistrates had taken their seats* First one arose and, saying he would not sit wjth him, walked out. The sergeant in charge of the case went after him to try to persuade him to remain, as it walked out. The prisoner, seeing the coast clear murmuring something about innocence and being hanged if he would wait to be tried by a bloke who had done* his bit of duffing in his time, walked out, too, and mounting the stolen horse that was handy rode away, and was never seen any more. The J.P. who had caused all the commotion, finding himself without an officer of the court or prisoner at the bar, in unembarrassed tones adjourned the court sine die and left. He never sat again; but he once said in relating the story; “I don’t know why the prisoner should have taken such an objection to me. I went there to let him off.”