ATTACK ON JURYMEN.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 11320, 2 September 1899, Page 4

ATTACK ON JURYMEN.

3ib,— Tour Wellington correspondent nas fallen into an error, and his dedueiions therefrom are consequently wrong. Ke says Commissioner Tunbridge is responsible for an alteration in the system of police prosecution in Court which must appeal to all fair-minded people as very just and commendable. Now, what Mr Tunbridge has done is to re-issue an old circular of, say, ten years ago, the original issue of which was caused by the action of Mr Shaw, solicitor, Wellington, who protested against the charge-sheet, containing the criminal record of the defendant, being handed to the Magistrate hearing a case, before the case was heard or decided. I have had a lengthened experience at Police Courts, and this has been the invariable practice. In the Supreme Court the practice ia the same. The Judge only has the prisoner s record, and I have never seen an instance of " the jury being regaled with a list of hia former offences." The remarks as to the jury might well have been omitted, even if it were true, which it is not, that "they are often of the feeble and narrow-minded type, and mostly quite ignorant of their duty. And again, "The spectacle of a row of mawkish jurymen listening to the police officer's recital of the prisoners past wickedness is not calculated to inspire an outsider with faith in the equitable consideration of the case in point. The custom is when the case is closed to hand to the Magistrate the criminal record to enable him to assess the amount of punishment that should be inflicted, and the same holds good in the Supreme Court. It is difficult to understand the writer's object in pinning this attack on the jurors to the notice that Mr Tunbridge has thought fit to issue a circular. — I am, &c, HONITANE. September Ist, 1899.