CHARGE AGAINST DR. MODE.
JUDGE CHAPMAN'S REMARKS,
(Per Press Association.) NEW PLYMOUTH, March 16. The Supreme Court sessions opened to-day before Mr Justice Chapman.
In the course of his charge to the Grand Jury his Honour referred to the charge of murder against Dr Goode. He said that the important case in this sitting was the charge of murder against a medical man who recently lived at Waitara. The inquiry they had to make was a limited one. It was really an inquiry as to whether there was prima facie evidence that this act of shooting whereby the deceased met her death was the act of accused. It might be that when the matter came to bo inquired 4nto, circumstances would bo brought forward to suggest a drunken condition or even a deficient mental condition, but he had to tell them for the purpose of the discharge of their duties that a condition of drunkenness or intoxication was no excuse whatever for a crime, and that so far as insanity was concerned, if any such question was suggested here that might bo a matter of defence, but it Was not the duty of the Grand Jury to enquire into matters of defence at all. What they had to enquire into' was whether the evidence made out a prima facie ease, rendering it proper that the case should be publicly tried and the guilt or innocence of the accused established. Evidence would show that accused went to the house where deceased resided, that he said something to her, made a proposition to her, and received a denial, and that thereupon, without any interval, he fired two shots into her neck, the result of one or both of which was that in the course of a few days she succumbed to her injuries. These simple facts were sufficient legally to constitute the crime of which the man was charged, and it would not be their duty to enquire further than to ascertain whether there was prima facie evidence to show that he fired the shots that struck this woman, and that she mot her death this wav. I
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Bibliographic details
Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 8825, 17 March 1909, Page 7
Word Count
356CHARGE AGAINST DR. MODE. Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 8825, 17 March 1909, Page 7
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