The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 30, 1911. JUDGE AND JURY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 12, 30 August 1911, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 30, 1911. JUDGE AND JURY.

Fortunately it is not a frequent occurrence for juries to bring in a verdict contrary to the summing-up of a Judge; but several instances have been recorded in New Zealand of an accused person having been sec at liberty whom the Judge, after a careful review of the evidence, had intimated to the jury that there was no other course open to them but to return a verdict of guilty. New Plymouth lias witnessed two or three such occurrences, one of very recent date, in which the Judge, in discharging the prisoner, did so in language anything hut complimentary to the “good men and true.” The late Judge Connolly will also he remembered ar having come into conflict with a jury, and his remarks caused quite a commotion, and were the subject of adverse criticism, both by the man in the street and in the columns oi the press. The Sydney “Daily Telegraph” thus deals’with a case that has occurred in New South Wales:— “When jurors who have sworn to ‘true deliverance make on the issues between our Sovereign Lord the King and the prisoner at tbc bar’ arc told by the presiding Judge that they have acquitted the prisoner ‘in the teeth of the evidence,’ they would he scarcely human if they did not fed offended. That was, apparently, the position of the jurors at Alhury, at the recent Q miter Sessions, who found a verdict of not guilty in the case of a person who was presented hy the Crown on an indictment charging him with having assaulted and jobbed a Chinese gardener. When discharging the jury, Judge Docker made the observation to which they have now objected by drawing up a petition to the Attorney-General setting out theii reasons for returning the verdict which evoked the hostile criticism of the Judge, and praying to he excused from serving on any more juries, seeing that they have ‘neither protection nor redress against the offensive whims ol presiding judges.’ Whether the Judge was right in his opinion that the accused was guilty, or the jam right in returning a verdict that he was not guilty is quite beside tin point. It was the Judge’s Junction to hear tiie case and to ,811111 up the evidence to the jury, but it was the jury’s function to decide whether the accused was guilty or not guilty. '1 iiaf is the law of tlie laud, and as long as it is so juries are entitled to give their verdict according to their con sciences, even il that verdict is not in agreement with the opinion wind the Judge, with his trained mind, has formed after hearing the evidence. 'l< accept the verdict of twelve men who may he totally unversed in drawing sound conclusions from the evidence presented to thorn lias certain obvious disadvantages, hut long experience has shown that, while not infallible, the system generally satisfies the demands of justice. It may sound

oaradoxical to sny that twelve more ■ r less inexpert ionml men, none' o; .vliora perhaps has ever been inside a court in bis hie hoi ore, may do Irust_>d to take a truer view of tacts embedded in a -mass of evidence, often Adi of irreconcilable contradictions, chan one man who has been specially trained in the interpretation of evidence, and who has made that wo I .k the study of his life-time. Y-jjA that s a position which experience has ratified, and which civilisation has tdopted. That being so, the criticism utiered by Judge Docker is beside the point. The jury have given their reasons for their verdict. To the trained judicial mind those reasons may be quite inconclusive and unconvincing. No matter. It is sufficient that they seemed conclusive to the jury who tried tlie ease. In this rase the jury are able to state explicitly why they gave the accused the benefit of a doubt.”