SUPREME COURT.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 43, 15 February 1912, Page 6

SUPREME COURT.

CHRISTCHURCH SPSS lONS. CONVICTED OF ATTEMPTED MURDER. (Per Press Association.) Christchurch, February 11. At tho Supreme Court, in tho case against' James Gibbons, charged with attempted murder of Mrs Elizabeth Mackonnie, at Sydenham, on December 18, Donnelly, counsel for accused, did not call evidence, but addressed the jury. He said there- could be no question as to the atrocity of the attack, and the only defence possible was that at tho time of tho occurrence he was mad and incapable of knowing what he was doing. If a man, though drunk, attacked anyone while still capable of forming intention lie was liable, but when in drinking ho brought himself to a state of madness he was free of criminal responsibility. lie quoted remarks by Justice Patterson in a case against a man Crewes where tho learned judge had declared that intent had to ho shown, and that the man’s state of intoxication was important in its bearing, on the point as to whether or not a man was able to form an intention, and j that whore a man was unable to form an intention he was not liable. The very severity of the wound showed that the man was mad. It almost spoke and proved that the man was past being merely drunk. A quiet, inoffensive man would not have attempted murder over the trivial postponement of a game of cards, unless he had lost his reason temporarily.

His Honor, addressing the jury, said that a normal man was field to be responsible for Ids acts, and where a man attacked a woman with a razor it would be generally held that the intention was to kill, but in the present case the plea was that the man was insane. Insanity was defined by statute in New Zealand, which declared every man should bo held to be sane until proved to the contrary, and that no man labouring under imbecility or a diseased mind would be convicted, nor whore a man was incapable of understanding or knowing what he was doing or that his act was wrong. The lino was drawn sharply between men who were insane and those whoso moral restraint had been broken down by drink. Drunkenness was not a disease of the mind. It was quits clear that Gibbons intended to cut the woman’s throat. He was sufficiently sober to know that a razor would cut her throat, and to find it, so that to say that he was incapable of knowing what ho was doing was, to his mind, absurd. His remark to Mrs Hensley that he “would do for” the woman was a further proof of his capability of intention. : Undoubtedly bis moral restraint had boon destroyed by the drink. Tire jury had a duty to the public in the case. After retiring for 50 minutes the *!di fp : ‘V<iiunicid a Verdict of guilty, with a recommendation' to morcy on account of the prisoner’s previous good character.

His Honor, at a later stage in the proceedings, sentenced Gibbons to five years’ imprisonment. Tom H. Solwood was found not guilty of alleged unnatural offences. ’William James, who yesterday was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for- theft from the person, has demanded a re-trial, as one of the jury was not sworn.