WHEN JUSTICE HAS ERRED.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 11998, 21 February 1903, Page 2 (Supplement)

WHEN JUSTICE HAS ERRED.

Innocent Men who Save Suffered for Others Crimes. U.u.U.) Recent events have once more drawn attention to circumstantial evidence considered as a proof of guilt. Some of the cases on record are very instructive. A man was found dead in the early morning near the path through a close in a village. He had been killed by that very lethal agricultural instrument, a fork, which was found lying beside the body. The fork belonged to the accused. Evidence was given to show that he had changed his clothes early in the day, and that the clothes which, he had put off were found covered with blood, hidden in the straw of a bed. The prisoner before the Justices had denied that he had changed his clothes —a most damning fact. It was also proved that he had been heard to threaten the murdered man.

The prisoner's only defence was a denial. He told this story:—He found the deceased lying dying, and on raising him up he put down the folk -which lie had in his hand. Iu the process of lifting the man died; and in dying vomited blood over his clothes. It ; flashed across his mind that he might be accused of murder. In his fearful haste to be gone he dropped the man, picked up the wrong folk, and rushed off to his house to change his clothes and hide the bloodstained garments. The reason why he denied having changed his clothes was because he thought it "an ugly circumstance" against him. The Judge, in summing up, declared that the evidence, though circumstantial only, ,was irresistibly convincing. The jury were all in favour of a verdict of "' Guilty " save one—that one the foreman. After speuding a night over their verdict, they at last took the view of the foreman, and brought in a verdict of " Not Guilty" against their convictions. What. was the truth? It transpired after the death of the foreman that the man had been accidentally killed by falling on Iris own fork in a struggle with the foreman, whom he had attacked.

In another case an elderly man who lived with his son and daughter was found mur-d-ered in a shed. The .son was accused of the crime, and the evidence against him was purely circumstantial, the principal witness being his sister. She proved that her father had money, and that her brother, who was his heir-at-law, had often expressed a desire to come into his inheritance. Oa the evening of the murder deceased went; out to the shed in which he was found toi milk a cow, while.,the witness went to visit friends, atwhose house she spent the night. The son was thus left alone -with the father. Snow was on the ground, and footsteps leading from the house to- the shed were observed.

The impressions in every detail corresponded to those iniade by shoes belonging to the accused man. In his bedroom a. hammer stained with blood was found, and this had obviously been the instrument used to commit the crime. On this .evidence, which was fully corroborated ' by neighbours, the accused was convicted and executed. Four years later the sister confessed on her deathbed that ..she had murdered the old man, and had thus got rid of both lives standing between herself and her father's; money. A man of means slopped at an inn, and during supper informed two other guests, who occupied a double-bedded room, that he had a considerable sum of money with him. During the night the two latter were awajcened by deep groans from the room occupied by their too-communicative fellowguest. • They got up, went to the room, and on opening the door discovered the landlord nf the inn standing over the bed with a dark lantern in one hand and a. blood-stained knife in the other. Their fellow-guest had been foully murdered in hi* sleep. They seized the landlord and disarmed him. He denied the crime, and said that, hearing the groans, he had come on lh.fi same mission as themselves, and had armed himself with thci knifr for his owii defence m ease of need. He was found guilty and executed. It subsequently transpired, however, that the man had hwn actually murdered by his own footman.