SUPREME COURT. DUNEDIN.

Tuapeka Times, Volume IX, Issue 607, 11 October 1876, Page 3

SUPREME COURT. DUNEDIN.

CRIMINAL SESSIONS. Tuesday, October 3. (Before His Honor Mr Justice Williams,) i SENTENCES. James Butler, aliis Donnelly (25), who | yesterday pleaded guilty to six charges of burglary, was brought up for sentence. ' The Crown Prosecutor, in answer to his Honor, as to whether prisoner's antecedents were known, said that prisoner was con- ! victed in the Justices' Court of two small I charges at the time of the committal of these offences. Prisoner handed the following statement to his Honor : — I bav<- to acknowledge my gu It, and do not desire to excuse it. I myself can too clearly see the mtgnitude and meanness of my crime to hope to make it appear les< iv the eyes of others. I was a strangei iv a strange country, unfortunate, unwilliugly out of employment, in. distress, and suffered myself to be led away. This was my condition. I sbaro it as a matter of fact, for I am aware of its utter wortblessuess us a plea. I make no defence, and do not ask you to stint the full justice of my punishment. But, your Honor, while Ido not deprecate punishment and justice, I do not venture to ask for mercy. lam a young mau, and I yet hope to retrieve oven this disgrace. lam not one of those criminals fr m practice and by inclination which society dreads. In becoming a criminal T ffibi>lled against; myselt, anA mjr ovrn zaiad aud lOUI SSOOnds the law in my punishment. While I am willing to bow to tho juit penalty of the liw, I humbly hope that if your Houor can see fit or expedient to shorten the actual term of my p inishment by adding to its rigor and severity, you will be so far merciful to me and do so. lam yet of that age wheu I can, if I may, still hope in the future, an'l I venture to trust thafc your Honor will s> tleil with me that, while I may be justly punished, I may not ba deprived of the hope that tha fairest aud best and most energetic of my future years will be spared to me. My owu sense of my position, my sense of how I must appear to others, makes me to hesitate to say that I have felt contrition. Some glimmering* of it might appear to your Honor from the fact that I have submitted to my x>osition with patience, aud that although I nripht, with some hopes of success, have denied part of my crime, I have fully, and of my own free will, acknowledged all I have rendered all the assistauce within my power to repair the mischief I had done in restoring or causing to be restored all the property that had been takes. I trust tbat your Honor will pity my hopes of a redeemed future nn<l extend some mercy to me. My heart is not callous and h trdened by crime, but softened by hope that I trust will not be crushed out of it. Recollect, sir, it is not leniency I ask but mercy : that your Honor will inflict such a penalty as shall be vigorous and severe, and a well-deserved punishment, while still I may not be weighed down by the despairing misery of knowing that the best, the most valuable, and the most redeemable of my future years shall be wasted in the living death of a prison. His Honor : Prisoner, Robert Butler, you have pleaded guilty to six indictments which have been found against you — one indictment for burglary, two for housebreaking, and three for larceny, I have read the statement that you forwarded to me ; and, as I have just now been informed by the Crown Prosecutor, nothing against you was known before you committed these crimes. Yon ask me to take into consideration your age, your position, and your future. You say that you have suffered yourself to be led away, and that you are not hardened in crime. That may be so, but at the same time the law must be vindicated, and. a sufficiently severe punishment must be inflicted. It was not one isolated case, but throughout your conduct appears to have had the indication of commencing a career of crime. I shall, however, in passing sentence take into consideration that there has been nothing against you hitherto, and tbat none of the crimes you have committed have been accompanied with violence. The sentence of the Court is that yoa be kept to penal servitude in the Colony of New Zealand for four years. Charles Henry Hall (22), who pleaded guilty to torgery yesterday, was next placed in the dock. In answer to the usual question, Prisoner said : I have nothing to say excepting that I am a new arrival in the Colony, having only come here about two mouths before I forged th? first chequo. I was walking down Princes street when I found a pocket-book in the evening. I was partly under the influence of liquor, and I pulled the book out of my pocket and forged a cheque on the fiim of Gillies and Street. I never thought of doing it before — it was not premeditated at all. I have nothing to say in defence of the other two charges. lam very sor>*v for what I have done, and regret it exceedingly. i-riauiicr was sentenced to three years' penal servitude. James Robertson (28), convicted the pre vious day of attempting to commit bestiality, still asserted his innoceace of the crime. His Honor : The sentence of the Court is that you be imprisoned in the common gaol of Dunedin for two years and kept to hard labor. John Lewis Home (31), convicted of three charges of forgery, was next brought up for sentence. Prisoner : I wish your Honor, in passing sentence, to take three things into considera tion. First-, dnring the twelve years and over I havt> been iv New Zealand no previous charges have been made against me; secoud, all were uttered under the same impulse a?:d at the same time — iv fact within one hour of each other — in the absence of anything like premeditation. In the third place, I have a ; wife in ill-health and a child a few weeks old. wholly unprovided for. His Honor said the crime prisoner had committed was a great deal too common in this Colony. While be sat on the Bench he was determined that when cases of forgery were brought before him he would inflict punishments that would act as warnings to others. Prisoner would receive the aame punishment as was given in a previous case of forgery — three years' penal servitude. INCITING TO FORGE. Robert L'utton Lee (undeftnded) was charged with inciting John Lev/is Home to commit a forgery at Oamaru on September 2. There were two counts against the prisoner — the first charging him with being an accessory before the forgery by prisoner Home of a cheque for the sum of L 7 10s ; and the second with being an accessory to the uttering of the same cheque. The case for the Crown was that Home and prisoner were on terms of great intimacy, and that the prisoner frequently visited the other's house, taking drink with him. Mrs Home said that prisoner instigated her husband to commit the forgeries for which he had that morning been sentenced, procuring a disguise for him while he uttered the cheques, and helping him to share the plunder. The Crown Prosecutor explained the law. The jury must be satisfied that prisoner had either moved, incited, aided, abetted, counselled, or procured Home to forge the bill before they convicted him. The jury- returned a verdict of "not guilty." STEALING PROM A STORE. Ah Youk was convicted of stealing money and goods from a store at Arrowtown, and was sent to gaol for two years. LARCENY. George Anderson was charged with stealing, at Blueskin, a bag containing clothing, the property of Joseph Holland. Mr Haggit prosecuted ; Mr Joyce defended. Prisoner was acquitted,

Wednesday, October 4. AIDINCt FORGERY. Robert Dutton Lee was brought up on the second indictment for having, at Oamaru, on September 2nd, aided and abetted John L,ewis Home to forge a caeaue for L 7 lty

with intent to defraud. A second count — and on which the jury were asked to found their decision — charged him with being an accessory before the fact to the altering of the cheque. Prio'ur, who was undefended, pleaded "notyulty." sChe Grown Prosecut'T challenged the vrhole ot the jury who had served Oil the firat indictment dealt with yesterday, and on which prisoner was acquitted. Having stated the facts of the case the Crown Prosecutor said he was informed that in the case heard yesterday some of the jury acted upon information they had heard from the witnesses outside the Court, and not from evidence in the Court. Such was the information given me on the confession of the jurymen themselvei. If the jurors had any questions to ask they had better ask them from the witnesses while they were is the box. His Honor (addressing the jury) : You must be clear about this point— you must form your opinions from what you hear in this Court and not from what you hear outside. It is highly improper for any person outside to attempt to influence the jury in any way, and it is also equally improper for the jury to permit themselves to be influenced. If any case of this kind is brought before the Court of persons attempting to influence the mind of jurymen I shall know how to deal with it. The Crown Prosecutor : It was not thia jury your Honor. His Honor : I am simply warning this jury that they must not follow such an evil example. , The case was then proceeded with, and after the prisoner had made his defence — which was to the effect that Mrs Home was the instigator of the whole of the forgeries, and he tried to prevent their perpetration — the question of what amount of reliability should be placed on Mrs Home's testimony arose. His Honor cited the case King against Neale and Taylor, where prisoners were indicted for stealiug sheep. It appeared the stolen sheep were found in the house of one who admitted king's evidence, and he gave evidence to show the other prisoners had stolen the sheep. The only other corroboration of this statement was that by the man's wife, and this was held not to be sufficient. The unsupported evidence of an accomplice would require corroboration. The Crown Prosecutor pointed out that in this case it was not a question of an accomplice. Home was the principal felon. His Honor replied that there was sufficient evidence to connect prisoner with the uttering, but unless the principal felon's evidence was corroborated, it would be the duty of a judge to direct a jury to return a verdict of " JNot guilty." The Crown Prosecutor : Not to advise, but to caution them how to act on the uncorroborated evidence of a convicted felon. His Honor : The advice usually given almost amounts to a direction. Mr Haggitt submitted that iv no principle of law could it be found that because a man was a felon his wife was to be discredited. As the prisoners were indicted separately, Mrs Home's testimony was admissable, although it would not have been had prisoner and Home were indicted together. The evidence, having been admitted, should be accepted. His Honor held that it wps merely a question of direction. It seemed almost a deduction in this case that the wife and an accomplice must be taken as one person. He should content himself by directing the jury that a wife would be biassed in favor of her husband, and, if necessary, should reserve the point. The principal witness in the case was the wife of the principal offender, and the fact of her testimony being unsupported should weigh with the jury. The Crown Prosecutor could not see that Mrs Home would effect any good by giving false testimony against prisoner. Her husband had been convicted, and no evidence she could now give would benefit her husband or herself. For the simple reason that because she had the misfortune to be the wife of a convicted felon her testimony should not have that weight it would otherwise have, he could see no principle in law or justice to uphold. His Honor then charged the jury, telling them that if they believed Mrs Home's testimony they would convict prisoner ; if, on the othei hand, they considered prisoner's version to be the true one, they would acquit him. The jury, after a short retirement, returned a verdict of " Not guilty." The Crown offered no evidence on the other two indictments and the prisoner was accordingly discharged. Thursday, October 5. sentence. Frederick William Walters (23) and Charles Burke (26) convicted the previous day of larceny, were brought up for sentence. Mr E. Cook, who had defended the priponeis, said that, with regard to Walters t..0 witnesses — Mr Moylan, of Morningtun, and Mr Barnes, of Caversham — had been in attendance during the hearing of the case, but were not present that day. As to Burke, he Lad to present two testimonies from former employers as to character. There was another ground — and a somewhat unusual one — on which he had to address his Honor, the extraordinary occurrence of the previous day, which must be held in the minds of all reasonable men to have had some effect on the jury, because it took to task the conduct of certain other jurors for being inattentive, and looked very much like a warning to that jury not to tread in the same steps of the other jurors. This should be taken into consideration by the Court, seeing that not being a civil case, he was unable to move to set aside the verdict or for a new trial. The Crown Prosecutor handed in to his Honor a previous conviction for larceny on board ship against prisoner Burke. So far as his learned friend's statements went, he had only to remark that he was utterly wrong in his law, and that a new trial might he obtained where the verdict was against the evidence. With regard to what he (Mr Haggitt) had stated yesterday, he did not for one moment regret what he had said, and if the same cause of complaint j occurred again, he should draw the Court's attention to the inattention of the jury. Mr Cook : It went beyond that — far beyond that, His Honor : Is there anything known against the prisoner Walters by the police ? The Crown Prosecutor : No, your Honor. His Honor did not think the observations made yesterday by the Crown Prosecutor had been intended to prejudice the jury in question against the prisoner. At the time Mr Haggit was making them it struck him (the learned judge) that the influence on the jury would be the other way, and he certainly thought the remarks he himself made on the same subject tended in no way to de feat the ends of justice. Jfe was of opinior that the jury had come to a sound con elusion on toe evidence. It was not a cas( for severe sentence, being merely a charg< of simple larceny. Prisoner Willian Burke, having been previously convicted; would be imprisoned in the common gaol o Dunedm for the term of nine months and b< kept to hard labor. Walters would be sen tenced to six months' imprisonment wit! haVd labor,

INDECENT ASSA' LT. William Marshall, miikinan, surrendered to his bail to answer a charge of indecently assaulting Jane Anderson, 11 years and 3 months old, on June 28. The Crown Prosecutor prosecuted ; Mr Macassey, with him Mr M'Keay, appeared for prisoner, who pleaded " Not guilty.'' For the defence the following witnesses were called as to character :— Messrs K. B. Martin, Michael Fleming, and James M'Callum Jamieson, who deposed that they had known the accused for periods varying from fiy« to fourteen years, and had always found him an honest, sober, and industrious man. The jury retired at 2.30 p.m., and returned into Court after an hour's deliberation, finding the prisoner guilty of the offence. There waa a second count against the prisoner, charging him with indecently assaulting Susannah. Brown, eight years and six mouths old, on June 15. The jury who had heard the first indictment were not empannclled in this case. The Jury having been sworn, Mr Macassey suggested that the Crown Prosecutor should offer no evidence on this charge. His Honor had the depositions before him, and would see that the ends of justice were met. After what had transpired in the former case he could not see what would be gained by the prosecution, of a second charge. The Crown Prosecutor would be very glad indeed to accept the suggestion of his learned friend, but he would not take upon himself that responsibility. If his Honor would relieve him by making a suggestion to him to that effect, he would only be too glad to accept it, and ask that the jury might be discharged, so that he could enter a nolle pmsequi. The girl's father was very loth indeed that his children should have to be examined. His Honor thought the ends of justice would be satisfied by the Crown not proceeding further with the case. The Crown Prosecutor : Then both sides consent to the jury being discharged, and I will obtain leave to enter a nolle pr.,sequi. Prisoner, who gave his age as 33, said he had nothing to say why sentence should not be passed upon him. His Honor : Prisoner at the bar, you have been convicted of an offence of a most disgusting character, and the Legislature has provided in cases of this kind in addition to the usual term of penal servitude that it is also discretionarj' to award the punishment of whipping, but in this case I shall not award thab additional punishment. It may be— and I give you the benefit of the doubt— that the offence was committed with the girl's consent. I do not say that such was the case — I should be very sorry to think that it was, but in consideration of the extreme punishment I give you the benefit of that doubt, and I shall not inflict that punishment. The sentence of the Court is that.you be kept in penal servitude in the Colony of New Zealand for the term of seven years.