AMERICAN COURTS
N.Z. LAWYER'S VISIT "INCREDIBLY INFORMAL" American court trials are an entertainment, because of their surprising informality, according to Mr. C. S. Thomas, of Ghristchurch, who has just returned to New Zealand 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 courts."
At the Santa Barbara trial, he continued, the 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 offered 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. Mr. Thomas described the trial as an entertainment, and said the New Zcalanders could rest assured that the court scones which they saw in American films were no exaggeration.
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Bibliographic details
Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 18922, 25 January 1936, Page 16
Word Count
205AMERICAN COURTS Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 18922, 25 January 1936, Page 16
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