ACCUSED MAN ACQUITTED

Hawera Star, Volume LII, 28 July 1932, Page 6

ACCUSED MAN ACQUITTED

MOUNT COOK MURDER TRIAL JURY OUT FOR THREE HOURS WILLIAM WBALLEY GOES FREE (By Telegraph—Press Association.) TIMARU, July 27. A‘.verdict of not guilty was returned by the jury after: a retirement of three hours: at the end of-the trial of Williain John Thomais Whalley on a oharg© of having murdered William Edward Wogan on November 5, 1931, at the Hermitage, Mount Cook. The Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers) made reference to the comment made by the coroner and committing magistrate.

Addressing the jury, counsel for Whalley said the jurymen had to obliterate everything they had heard or read outside the court. There were some peculiar features about the case ‘-particularly extraordinary, ho called it—-and there was the conduct of tho coroner who held the inquiry and of the magistrate who committed Whalley for trial. Those two men made from the bench statements which were decidedly prejudical to Whalley. What they said they said in public and it had been published. That was highly improper and he thought the Grown Law Office held the same view, for a change of venue was offered. The defenccT appreciated the offer but decided to place Whalley’s fate m the hands of a jury at Timaru. i j SUMMING UP BY JUDGE. ' In his summing-up the Chief Jus--1 tice said there was one matter to . which he was constrained to refer, and j that was the matter to which counsel had referred in his address. "When charging the jury the previous day lie himself, knowing something of the kind had happened, ventured to deal with it m a guarded and general way without making particular reference to the case. Counsel for Whalley had referred to the matter and certainly not improperly, and the Chief Justice felt it incumbent upon him to say a word or two to clear up the matter. Every person accused of a crime in a British community, the Chief Justice said, was entitled to a fair trial and had the right to go before a trial jury unprejudiced and unembarrassed by prior comment. It was tbe duty of a coroner to ascertain the cause of death. The magistrate in such circumstances was sitting merely as. a recorder or the evidence before him, excepting that he might have to decide provisionally oil tin? actniissability evidence. POSSIBILITY DEPLORED. If, as the Chief Justice gathered from the statement by counsel, anything had been done m this case confcrary to what had botvfi said, all he could say was that it was to be deplored. It had never happened in Ins experience in New Zealand before and he: hoped it would never happen again. After a retirement of over three hours the jury returned a. verdict of not guilty. The pronouncement was received with applause at the back of the court. The Chief Justice ordered the police te' bring forward anyone seen applauding, but the police were not able to dp so. . The Chief Justice said he desired to make certain observations. Counsel for the defence bad drawn his attention to the fact that when lie was commenting during the afternoon on comment by the coroner and the committing magistrate, lie did not have the accurate finding of the coroner. He had the finding as it appeared in the local paper, which omitted two or three words‘which very greatly qualified the comment that should be made* so fai as the coroner was concerned. The position of the coroner was different from that of tbe magistrate and so far as the coroner was concerned it wornd have been, better if one paragraph of his finding had not appeared.