STRANGE VERDICTS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 935, 4 December 1933, Page 5

STRANGE VERDICTS.

Crime and Punishment in Australia. JURIES SHIRK THEIR DUTY. (Special to the “ Star.”) SYDNEY, November 2. The other day one William Bishop was charged with having “ maliciously inflicted grievous bodily harm ” on ! Eileen Fisher, a woman with whom he had been living. The evidence went to show that Bishop struck the woman on the head with a bottle, then chased j her upstairs and beat her brutally. The jury came back into Court and announced that they found Bishop guilty of “common assault”; and Judge Curlewis described it as “ the most incomprehensible verdict ” that ! he had ever heard. As the woman was j ; suffering from injuries which necessi- I i tated hospital attention, somebody i ! had evidently attacked her; but the J jury evidently attached some import- j j ance to Bishop’s statement that he and i the woman and some friends were all i j drunk together, and that he could not J say who hurt her—only he was sure ■ that he had not done it. Judge Cur- i lewis insisted that the jury must find ! the accused guilty or not guilty on the I charge laid, and to help them make up their minds he—perhaps ill-advisedly—-got Bishop’s record read out to them. ! There were several previous convictions, and the Judge realised that the i jury might be prejudiced by what they [ had just heard. He therefore asked j Bishop whether he tvould consent to i accept the jury’s verdict or stand a 1 fresh trial. Bishop very wisely elected J to leave his case in the jury’s hands, | and they then brought him in “ not i guilty.” Bishop was, therefore, dis- ! charged. This remarkable verdict has -been ’ made the text for a number of comments upon the apparent reluctance of juries to give verdicts that will entail j

any serious punishment. It is reported that the Crimes Act is to be amended shortly so as to compel juries to record verdicts in precise accordance with the indictment, especially in cases where the evidence points to murder. According to “ Truth,” which has taken a strong public stand in the matter, “ modern juries are abandoning their duty to the community by bringing in manslaughter verdicts in the case of even the most diabolical crimes.” The two cases which “ Truth ” lias specially in view are the Craig case and the murder of Rowland. Craig admittedly killed May Miller, and he was finally adjudged guilty of killing Bessie O’Connor—the details of these crimes are so horrible that I do not propose to harrow the feelings of my readers now by recounting them again. Neither jury brought in a verdict of manslaughter only in the Miller case, and it was ap* parentlv on the strength of this wild version of the crime that the case for Craig's reprieve—after he was sentenced to death for the O’Connor murder—was ' ultimately built up. In the Rowland case the jury listened to a story that : “ would be considered an insult to the intelligence of the average man,” and apparently accepted Wallace’s excuse I that “he didn’t know that it was ! loaded,” and that the revolver went | off because he “ accidentally bumped I against a tree guard ” —thotigh evidence showed that there was no tree guard there!—and so they declared him guilty of ” manslaughter only.” Happily the Criminal Appeal Court rejected the impudent request of Wallace and Newlyn that their life sentences should be reconsidered on the ground of “ undue severity.” Tender-hearted Juries. But the tendency of juries here to shirk their duty in such cases is only too well recognised. The“ Bulletin,” com- | menting on the proposal to convert all j our gaols into open-air camps, observes ! that “ with tender-hearted juries ! shrinking from the use of the gallows, j and Governments pampering their permanent boarders, crime will soon be a passport to a life of ease.” And in view j of recent events here, this can hardly I be termed an exaggeration.