DUTY OF JURIES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 276, 20 October 1938, Page 13

DUTY OF JURIES

“FIXING THE STANDARD.” SAFETY ON ROADS. Comment that it was the juries, by their action in dealing with charges of negligent driving, who fixed the standard .of care on the roads, was made by His Honour Sir John Reed when summing up the evidence at the conclusion, in the Supreme Court at Palmerston North yesterday afternoon, of a case involving .n charge of negligent driving, thereby causing bodily injury.

“I propose firet of all to make a few general observations with which I think you will agree,” said His Honour to the jury. “There are far* too many motor accidents in New Zealand causing death and injury to pedestrians and to others in cars. They are far too prevalent, and the method of assisting to stop them rests with the juries. “It is the juries who fix the standard of care required in the community,” added His Honour. , “It is a necessary thing that by their verdicts they should fix the standard of care. If a jury said 'Poor chap. He did not intend it—a decent fellow —he certainly was wrong,’ but dismissed the charge, it would he lowering the standard. The effect is that a person is allowed to go free because he is—as is usual in these cases—quite a decent fellow. If lie wilfully did it, and someone was killed, it would he murder.”

His Honour proceeded that the charge of negligent driving thereby causing death was a mitigation of that formerly classified as manslaughter, which had had such a heinous suggestion that juries had been reluctant to convict. It was felt, by reducing it to a minor category—and His Honour had had some part in that—that where the circumstances justified it a jury would convict. It was primarily of interest to Palmerston North that the care to be exercised in crossing railway lines should be of a fairly high standard.