ALLEGED INTERFERENCE WITH A WITNESS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2721, 9 May 1906, Page 18

ALLEGED INTERFERENCE WITH A WITNESS.

COUNSEL'S ADDRESS CONTINUED. Seconp Day — Wednesday. The commission resumed its sitting in the^i Supreme Court on Wednesday morning. I Mr A. R. Atkinson, of Wellington, appeared -, for John James Meikle, the complainant ; Dt Findlay, of Wellington, for the Crown. Immediately on their Honors (Mr Justice Edwards and Mr Justice Cooper) taking their i seats on the bench, Dr Findlay mentioned a >, matter which he considered a contempt of couit, in that Mr Meikle had grossly insulted one of the Crown witnesses (Mr Fleming) on the public street. The facts alleged, as well as Mr Atkinson's reply, are set out elsewhere. Mr Meikle is to be called on this (Thursday) morning to explain his conduct. Mr Atkinson, continuing his address, referred to Mac George's evidence. Lambert's state- | ment was that the skins were left on some bags of lime in the smithy, while the police said the skins were found among some of the prisoner's, lying on a beam in the smithy. ! The evidence of Mr Grieve, manager of the Pine Bush Station, who was a stranger to Meikle, was that the skins appeared to have been dried on a wire, as the wire mark was on them. The incident was surely confirmative of statements made by Meikle's witnesses regarding what Lambert had said to them as to a payment of £50 to be made to him (Lambert) in consideration of him patting Meikle away. All of Meikle's- actions were those of i an innocent man. He could, had be been I guilty, have destroyed the skins, and thus have i entirely removed all evidences of his crime. J There had not been the slightest attempt on j Meikle's part to cloak his actions. Then there was. this peculiar circumstance : that a. fort- • night before Meikle was arrested Lambert told I | the' police that he was going to bring a charge J i against Meikle, and that charge wa3 actually brought. At the trial in 18S7 this was what Detective Ede said in reply to the accused- " I saw you at Invereargill on the 3rd or 4th of last month (October). We had a conversation. You told me you expected there would be a spree, and thafc I would have a job. You said you had been informed that sheep and sheepskins were to be put on your land by the coirpanj. You told me that two men

were to get £50 each as soon as you were arrested." One of the most tragical incidents in the whole case was that that evidence was tendered in the Supreme Ccu.rt at Invercargill and ruled out by Judge Ward. The matter was referred to at Lambeit's trial in 1895. When Meikle was in the box he said : " I complained to Detective Ede at Invercargill in consequence of what Lambert told me." He could cot imagine any circumstance that was more conspicuously eloquent of the innocence of Meikle than that circumstance. The normal inference from the facts was very satisfactory to his case. When a judge reported to the Crown, he (learned counsel) did not know that a, judge could go outside the sworn evidence placed before him. At any rate, Judge Ward had put into his report a good deal of extraneous matter. Surely the one matter that should have gone into that report was the statement of Detective Ede as to what the prisoner had said to him in October. That statement was not brought into court, though it was set out in detail in the depositions, it was a deplorable omission from the j'udgs's report. Dealing with Lambert's defence at his trial, learned counsel said it was a simple matter with regard to all the evidence, except his own. There was a question as to getting the sheep through a, narrow door. [Photographs of the doors of the smithy were laid before the commission.] The front door was a 4ft door. The side door was an 18in door. Lambert's story, which he had stuck to consistently was that young Meikle and his father drove the sheep into the ya,rd and subsequently drove them through the narrow door into the smithy, which took them atout 20 minutes. Little was made of the point in 18S7, but experts 'were- called on both sides in 1895. There might be suspicion against expert testimony, but here the one expert against whom there could be no suspicion, was Mr Urquhsrt. "This gentleman himself, attempted to get sheep through the <narrow door, and could not 'do it. Some were got in by catching them, and throwing them in. Mr Meikle and his son were supposed-to have got sheep through here in the dark, -with the assistance of one dog, yet Mr Urquhart could not do it with the assistance of men and dogs in" the daylight. Mr Forsaith said : "If sheep were brought to the smithy at night they would be put in at the 4ft door. It would be very easy to put them in at that door. Ido not think they wouid be able to put them in with a dog in the narrow door." On the other side there were also experts. Mr Thomas Gold said there would be a slight difficvilty in putting sheep through the narrow opening, but with a fairly good dog it could be done. Mr James Walker said that with a good dog there would be no difficulty in getting the sheep through the narrow door, though he added that it would be tantamount to madness to take them in through the narrow door when there was a wide door. The whole case really rested on Lambert, and a considerable part of Lambert's •evidence was st^aixist lxixxa^el£ on account of his repeated contradictions of himself on important points. Dealing with the date on which the sheep were stolen, learned counsel said that Lambert was quite definite that the date was October 17 when it was a matter of convicting another man, and it was only when it came to defending himself that he became indefinite as to the date. Counsel dealt at considerable length with the evidence as to date at both trials, and then gave a recitaJ of the steps Meikle took subsequent to Lambert's conviction to c')tain some measure of redress and compensation from the Government. The appeals of Meikle to Parliament culminated in JE4OO being voted Meikle in 1896, which amount was not accepted. In 1897 an amount of £500 was voted, and in speaking on the item in the House the Premier said it was not voted as a recognition of Meikle's innocence, but was a contribution towards his- expenses in having brought a perjurer to justice. On December 17 of the same year Meikle signed a, receipt for the £500 as being full satisfaction, for any claims he had or might have against the Crown in respect to his imprisonment for pheep-stealing and his prosecution of Lambert for perjury. Learned counsel admitted that that receipt was a somewhat difficult obfelaele to overcome, but he submitted that the whole basis had in the interim been altered. The vote was made by Parliament on the assumption that Meikle waß guilty, but it was now hoped as an outcome of the work of the Royal Commission to establish Meikle's innocence.

After the luncheon adjournment, Mr Atkinson, said his learned friend had reminded him of the fact that another sum independent of that already mentioned had been paid to Meikle. It was a sura o£ £294 16a Id, which was paid on November 29, 1895, two years previous to the payment of £500. It was for the costs incurred in the prosecution of Lambert for perjury. Continuing. Mr Atkinson said he was prepared to admit that the Government, in detaining the receipt from Meikle, thought thai was the last of the matter. He did not see that calling Mr M'Nab would help them. At anyrate, he hoped to be able to come to an understanding with his friend, so as to obviate the necessity of holding over the commission's report until Mr M'Nab's return to the colony. It was a debt of honour before the receipt was signed, and the question was as to whether Meikle had obtained an honourable receipt. He (Mr Atkinson) said there was nothing dishonourable in taking that release from Meikle at the time it was given. It was a necessary precaution for the protection of the public purse. But he (learned counsel) rested the substance of his case on this: Whether, if an entire alteration was made in the foundation of the basis on which the Government proceeded Jn getting that receipt, the whole matt-er ought not to be set at large again for a court of honour to reconsider. It was not to be approached in any huckstering or litigious spirit, and the commission, he was sure, would not approach it in that way. This, he fiubxcutted. was the position; the man's

guilt being in doubt, and more than in doubt, if the colony paid money to Meikle and got a receipt, was it not bound to pay something mores if the man's innocence was established? As it was difficult to find a precedent, he had endeavoured to find a parallel. Mr Justice Cooper said, if a man was wrongfully convicted and served five years' penal servitude, £500 is not adequate compensation ; but that is net the question. The question is whether with that knowledge in his mind he did not discharge the colony from every moral obligation, and that is what you have to meet. Mr Atkinson said that was so. Mr Justice Edwards said that Judge Ward reported against Meikle, and, prim* facie, Meikle ought to have got nothing at all, but the Government said, " Rather than be bothered with you, will you take £500 and go?" The question, then, was, Should he afterwards get any -more? He (his Honor) did not say he should not, but that might be the position. It would not be right that a claimant against the colony should take what he could get on. the recommendation of the committee, and then come again and again. It would be a bad precedent, and a. great responsibility rested on the commission m that respect. Mr Atkinson admitted that it was a responsibility, but what he desired to meet Mr Justice Cooper's point wi+h was this: It was quite true that so far as the suppliant was concerned the case was clear that he professed to know that he was innocent, and he signed nevertheless. But surely, when it was an appeal to bounty the essential element was the mind of the giver. The mind of the giver at the time, the money was allotted was that the suppliant was not an innocent man, but a man who had rendered a public service by running another man to gaol. Mr Justice Cooper said the point Ifc Atkinson had to meet and satisfy the ' commission upon — he did not say counsel could not do- it — was whether a person, knowing he had been wrongfully convicted, chose to take a sum of money and ■ -voluntarily — learned counsel said under pressure of circumstances — discharged the colony from any further payment, had j not himself estimated his >oss at that amount, j and whether a precedent ought to be created ■ by which another man who might be unfor- j ; tunately placed in the same position could afterwards take a sum of money and then come back and demand something more. It was a question of public policy. i Mr Atkinson said he would try to show ' that it was consistent with public policy to ! accede in this case to the demands of honour. ', He had taken it as a perfectly clear matter of public policy, for which there was wellestablished precedent, that the innocent j victim of a miscarriage of justice had a I claim on the bounty or compassion of the colony. He would submit precedents to their Honors- At the same time he adi mitted there was no lego-1 right on the part I of any person to compensation for the errors ! of a Government officer. Every case must be weighed on its own merits, and this was not I a case for exact precedent. Mr Justice Cooper said he took it that the strongest way in which Mr Atkinson could | put his case was this: Although Meikle, when he took the £500. was conscious of the wrongful conviction, the Government, when they paid the £500, paid it without that belief, and that if they had shared with him j the belief that he had been wrongfully conI victed they would have given more than they did. Mr Atkinson said that was what .he was endeavouring to contend, and* be was glad his Honor appreciated the contention. Counsel went on to say that in the case of. a. legal j obligation the matter was nrotaL In" the case i of an appeal to bounty, especially to the bounty j of the Crown,- it was a matter of gratuity. ! In other words, the control of the whole ; question rested with the body to whom the appeal for bounty was made, and each appeal to its bounty- must be carefully watched and ! interpreted in a broad and liberal spirit in regard to the circumstances of each case. Learned counsel instanced some parallel cases. The whole criterion, he went on to say, was not what Meikle had a right to demand, but what it was the duty of the colony to give. If it was proved that the man was innocent, the colony must not pay attention to red-taDe, sealing-wax, penny stamps, or receipts, but look at the broad aspect of the case and decide accordingly. Otherwise, he ventured to submit that in this extraordinary and absolutely unprecedented case the wrongs that Meikle had suffered, the endurance he had exhibited, and the pertinacity with which he had run his man down would be surpassed by one other feature in the business — the meanness of the colony whose institutions unwittingly did him a terrible wrong. Tho sixth issue in the inquiry was a subsidiary one — the financial position of Mr Meikle before his arrest, during his imprisonment, and on his release, and whether he was entitled to further pecuniary compensation. In this connection, learned counsel dealt briefly with the suppliant's affairs, pointing out that before he was sent to prison he possessed property, whereas for the last few years he 'had been in a hopeless state of impecuniosity The commission adjourned until this morning. (Continued elsewhere.)

The American cruiser Baltimore, now in Sydney, will come to New Zealand after spending a few weeks in Australian ports. Built in 1888, the Baltimore was attached to Admiral Dewey's squadron during the fighting in the Philippines. She afterwards went to the Atlantic coast, and three years ago was commissioned for the Pacific, being in the East during the greater portion of the war. Captain N. Sargent and his officer arc all new to Australia,