IMPROPERLY HANGED

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXIV, Issue 3241, 11 December 1930, Page 7

IMPROPERLY HANGED

QUAINT COMPENSATION CLAIM. Odd cases figure in the New Zealand Justices’ Quarterly,” where Mr. W. H. Woodward, S.M., writes of some of the legal difficulties which arose in Samoa and the demand for common sense, as there was frequently no legal precedent to follow. * “Such a case was that of Bill Howden, known as ‘Crooked Neck Bill’,” Mr. Woodward says. “In one of the distant islands. ‘Crooked Neck Bill’ had been -condemned to be hanged by the Vigilance Committee. For some reason, either because the drop was too short or Bill was too tough, the hanging failed to kill him, and he was cut down. Afterwards his neck was all awry. He came to me and said he wanted to claim compensation for being improperly hanged. He admitted that he had deserved hanging, but he objected to the fact that the Vigilance Committee had not made a proper job of it. It was somewhat of a legal puzzle. Could & man who had deserved hanging, but had been improperly hanged, claim compensation from those who had justifiably hanged him, had failed, to do it properly? However, the Government was too busy with other matters at the time, and Bill Howden’s puzzle was never solved.