PICTON MURDER CASE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21404, 31 January 1933, Page 11

PICTON MURDER CASE

APPEAL COURT SITTING COMMENCEMENT TO-MORROW THREE DAYS ALLOTTED [BY TELEGRAPH— PItESS ASSOCIATION J WELLINGTON, Monday The hearing by the Court of Appeal of tho applications mado by counsel for Edward Tarrant, who" is under sentence of death for the murder at Picton of James Flood, is set down for Wednesday. Three Judges will be on the Bench and three days have been set down fcr the hearing.

On Thursday last the House of Representatives put through the Judicature Amendment Bill, the primary purpose of which was to enable the Court of Appeal to meet at an early dato to hear the appeal of Edward Tarrant against his conviction for murder at Picton.

It was explained in the House by tho Minister of Justice, tho Hon. J. G. Cobbe, that the bill would enable the GovernorGeneral in Council to appoint a special sitting of the Court to deal with any urgent matter without disturbing fixtures that might have been already made for ordinary sittings. At any special sitting, jurisdiction of the Court of Appeal may be exercised by any three Judges of the Supreme Court who may be of the same or different divisions of the Court of Appeal. Ordinarily the Court will not meet again until March, but Mr. Cobb?? said it was felt that Tarrant's appeal should be dealt with before that date. When Tarrant was found guilty, Mr. Justice Blair granted leave to Mr. Evan Parry, counsel for the condemned man, to apply to the Court of Appeal for a new trial and also to reserve certain questions of law for the consideration of that Court. Tho appeal for a new trial was made on the ground that the verdict was against the weight of evidence.

The questions reserved for the opinion of the Court of Appeal were:—(l) Whether there was any evidence upon which the jury was entitled in law to find accused guilty; (2) whether the conviction should not be quashed accordingly, or, alternatively, (3) whether, at the trial, the Judge wrongly directed the jury (a) upon the evidence as to the time when the murder was committed, (b) in making use of a simile comparing the various facts alleged by the prosecution to the strands of a cord or the sticks in a faggot, and (c) upon the question whether there was any evidence that the banknotes changed by accused had belonged to the dead man, and whether a new trial should not be ordered accordingly.