AMERICAN COURTS.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13171, 1 February 1936, Page 3

AMERICAN COURTS.

GREAT LACK OF DIGNITY. American court trials are an entertainment, because of their surprising informality, according to Mr O. S. Thomas, of Christchurch, who returned to New Zealand last week 'from a visit to California. He attended as a spectator a murder trial at Santa Barbara. “Americans never fail to advertise the best and largest,’* he said, “but they fail to tell you the worst —their system of criminal justice. I was astounded at the absolute lack of dignity and the informality in their court a.’ 1 At the Santa Barbara trial, he continued, tho judge was a chatty person, who, at one stage, when a surveyor was having difficulty in pinning up a plan, stepped from the Bench and offerea assistance.

Illustrative of the lengths to which this free and easy justice went, Mr Thomas said that during a “recess," everybody in the Court walked about, talking, and the man who, to all appearances, was about to be hanged, stepped from the dock and chatted amiably with several young women who were interested spectators. Air Thomas described the trial as an entertainment, and said that New Zealanders could rest assured that tho Court scenes which they saw in American films were no exaggeration.