JURY’S VERDICT

Grey River Argus, 21 May 1941, Page 7

JURY’S VERDICT

. Problem for Court WELLINGTON, May 20. The legal effect of the verdict of a jury in finding a' man guilty “on his own admission,” but recommending him to leniency because “we feel he did not have wilful criminal intent,” was argued before Chief Justice Myers, to-day, counsel submitting the verdict was one of not guilty. Sir M. Myers expressed the opinion that if the man did not have wilful criminal intent, the jury should not have found him guilty. He thought the safer course was to interpret the verdict as one of not guilty. He aid it with hesitation, but it was not a case, he said, where any good object was to be gained by carrying the matter further. IL, there were previous convictions, or the man was of bad or indifferent character, he might have looked at the mattermore closely. 7

The case was that of Jack Norman Eager, stable hand, charged with stealing a watch, chain and pendant, which he admitted finding, and knowing whose they were, he had given the pendant away.