COURT OF APPEAL

Southland Times, Issue 21219, 21 October 1930, Page 8

COURT OF APPEAL

POWERS OF A JUDGE IN DISPUTE.

DECISION RESERVED.

(Per United Press Association.)

Wellington, October 20.

Argument in the case of the Crown versus Alfred Storey was continued in the Court of Appeal to-day. The Solicitor-General (Mr Fair K.C.) proceeded to discuss the question of causation and submitted that if the deaths were the proximate result of Storey’s negligence, Storey was responsible at law. Tbe question for the decision of the Court was to what “degree Storey's negligence was the cause of the deaths. He submitted that evidence as to the condition of the steeringgear of Cook’s car was not admissable. If that evidence tended to show that the chain of causation was broken it was admissable, but he contended that it could not show that the chain of causation was broken or that Storey’s negligence was exhausted by the time the deaths ensued.

Continuing, Mr Fair discussed at some length the power of a Judge in the criminal courts to put issues and submitted that according to the Crimes Act of 1908 such Judge had full power to put issues in any case where complicated questions of law ■were likely to arise. Dealing with the second charge that w'as laid under the Motor Vehicles Act, he contended that the same degree of negligence required to be proved as in the charge of manslaughter laid under the Crimes Act. The rider in the jury’s answer that the accident was due to an error of judgment, Mr Fair submitted, was no more than a recommendation to mercy. A recommendation to mercy would not.be allowed to affect the verdict unless it was an essential part of the jury’s verdict. The fact that the jury thought the accident was due to an error of judgment did not necessarily negative negligence on Storey’s part for an “error of judgment” might include or exclude negligence. After Mr H. H. Cornish (counsel for the accused) had briefly replied, the Court adjourned, reserving its decision.