THE ARMSTRONG APPEAL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18601, 8 July 1922, Page 10

THE ARMSTRONG APPEAL

A NEW ZEALAND CASE CITED. DANDELIONS AND ARSENIC. (From Odb Own Cobrmpokdkkt.) LONDON. May 17. During a 10 hours’ speech in defence of Major Armstrong, against his sentence of death for the murder of his wife by poisoning her with arsenic, his counsel, Sir fi. Curtis Bennett, in reply to Mr Justice Shearman, referred to the famous blew Zealand poison trial. Counsel’s main concern was to argue that Mr Justice Darling who tried the case at Hereford, was wrong in admitting evidence concerning the alleged attempt to poison Mr Martin (a brother solicitor) as testimony relevant to, the charge- that Major Armstrong murdered his wife. , Thomas Hull, Sir Henry submitted, was tried for murder by antimony poisoning m New Zealand in 1887. Several of the tacts were similar to those of the Armstrong case. Hall was not arrested on the murder (barge, and in the second case they had evidence of something administered in food and a subsequent inquiry into the murder. . The Lord Chief Justice; And there is this further similarity: At the time of arrest the very poison was found on the prisoner. Counsel: Yos, my lord. In the Hall case the evidence was admitted, but it was held on oppeal that there was not sufficient proof that the two poisonings formed port of the same transaction, or were effected in pursuance of a common design, and that tho conviction must be quashed. The prosecution were not entitled to say, “Welk we are going to say that you are the likely person to do it, by showing, what you did in some other case.” In the judgment of the Court of Appeal in the ease of Hall, it was laid down that it was not right to assume that from the commission ot one crime the depravity it exhibited made it likely that the person would commit another crime. Sir Henry said ho relied very much upon the judgment in that case, because it was the .case which was nearest, as far as he ooidd find, to the case he was arguing. Mr Justice_ Shearman: The argument against you is that the Hall decision was not approved. Counsel: I don’t think that judgment has ever .been directly dissented from. I do not say it has been approved. If I knew that that judgment had been <’ rectly approved in any recent judgment, I should not occupy your Lordships’ time so much. The Lord Chief Justice; Up to this timeyou have had a string of esses which, with one or two exceptions, have reiterated, in slightly different circumstances, what appears to be laid down in Geering. Then, when you oome to the Queen v. Hall in 1887 you get important criticism. Now you approach a period when the former class of oases is re-established, with certain observations. Mr Justice Avory: How can you say there is a difference between system and design? How can you systematically commit a crime without having tho design to commit it? Counsel: I submit you can have a design os regards one person. Wliat would have been tho position if Major Armstrong’s defence had been that for months before his wife’s death he was on a desert island ? Could tho prosecution then say: ‘‘We will prove you did it, because in the following October you did something to somebody else?” Such an argument would be ridiculous. Mr Justice Avory: Supposing that were his defence, and there was evidence for the prosecution that it was not true, and that he was in fact at home? _ Counsel: Surely it would not be admissible, in order to show that he was at home, to say that some months afterwards he did something else. The Lord Chief Justice: Supposing what happened to Mr Martin had happened within a day or two of Mrs Armstrong’s death, would you still hold the evidence inadmissible ? Counsel replied that that suggestion, was far removed from the Armstrong case, because there was no suggestion in the Armstrong case that there -was a nexus between tho two offences, if they were committed. It could not be suggested, as Mr Justice Avory had put it, that because a man did not like people who annoyed him that made it one transaction if he got rid of these people. It was not like getting rid of all the members of a family. Mr Justice Avory: I don’t see how you can call it one transaction to get rid of a family in several months. -■• Counsel. It would be if it were done for the same object—to get insurance money or to obtain inheritance. . . . You get cases showing a wave in one direction. You have then a certain number of oases which show hesitancy to accept those rulings, and then you come to oases, especially from 1912 onwards, which show there-is a wave in my favour. THE DANDELION THEORY, The Lord Chief Justice: And sometimes a disinclination to discuss the question os to whether the ruling in a particular case does apply? Have you considered the fact, (ho curious fact-, that so many of these cases have to do with poisoning? You are coming from something comparatively common to something comparatively uncommon when you come from a gdn to a surgical instrument, and then to a fatal dose of poison found in a prisoner’s pocket. Counsel: Do you mean to say that the weedkiller is more uncommon than a surgical instrument? The Lord Chief Justice: Three and threequarter ounces of white arsenic! Counsel: A pound of arsenic, consisting of 7000 girains, could be bought for anything from. Is 6d to 2s 6d. Mr Justice Shearman: You could poison 1500 people. Mr Justice Avory: You could poison three thousand. Counsel: Yes, for half a crown. With seven thousand grains, at 2s 6d per lb, one would destroy individual woods by using packets of ■ three and a-half grains each at. the rate of 66 weeds for a penny. Mr Justice Avory: Does every dandelion require three and a-half grains to kill it? Counsel: I am not prepared to argue the exact amount to kill one dandelion. When you can destroy 65 dandelions for one penny it does not make one particularly careful as to whether each packet contains one 'and a-half grains or five and a-half grains. Mr Justice Avory: The packet found upon the appellant contained three and a-half grains, and it was in his pocket at his office. The Lord Chief Justice pointed out that as it was part of the defence that Mrs Armstrong died from arsenical poisoning it loft three things open—accident, suicide, or poisoning by somebody else. There was’nothing to prevent Sir Henry in his final address to the jury saying that she might have died in either of these ways. Sir Henry replied that if the defence was that somebody else accidentally 'poisoned Mrs Armstrong, the Martin evidence would not be admissible, bul if Armstrong accidentally poisoned her it would be. It was all a question of tho defence, and he submitted there was nothing in the defence before the court, at Hereford which allowed the admission of the .Martin evidence.