RESPONSIBILITIES OF JURIES IN CASES OF ABORTION STRESSED

Wanganui Chronicle, 6 August 1947, Page 4

RESPONSIBILITIES OF JURIES IN CASES OF ABORTION STRESSED

(P.A.) Auckland. Aug. 5. Special features about abortion cases and errors into which juries sometimes feel in dealing with them, were discussed by Mr. Justice Callan, when addressing a jury in one such case.

"The law we still have." he said, "is based upon the old foundation that abortion is just another form of murder, that it is the taking of life, the life of the unborn."

His Honour said it was frequently suggested that juries in cases of abortion sometimes failed to do their duty, that they had been known to acquit where they should have convicted, to acquit not because they had any doubt at all about the guilt of the accused, but for other and bad reasons.

“Sometimes, I must say," said His Honour, "that the suggestion has, in particular circumstances, appeared to be not unwarranted and, therefore, I think it my duty to say a word or two about it."

His Honour said there were two reasons, both of them bad, which it was sometimes suggested operated upon the minds of a jury. The first of these was doubts whether the law as to abortion was right and justified, and whether abortion should really be classed by the law as a crime. The other suggestion was that, In face of evidence which convinced the minds of a jury of the guilt of the accused, they might nevertheless acquit because of feelings of disgust and distaste at the apparent unfairness of one of the participants in the crime being convicted on information given by others who had shared in all the criminality and given the information that had led to the conviction of the other. The Judge could quite understand men, called away from their ordinary work, and not having regular experience of the administration of the law and justice, being suddenly brought into one of these difficult cases, being swept into one Or other of these errors. They were both errors and the duty of everyone in a free, self-governing community like this, was to accept the law as it was, and there was no doubt whatever about the law. The basis of the law was that abortion was the taking of life, and that was a great evil. If it was allowed to grow in any community, it ultimately meant the ruin the community in which tt spread, si anyone took the attitude that he would not convict one wrongdoer on the evidence of others, he was recording a final vote to render the lawpowerless to do anything in these cases.

It was disgusting and repulsive to have to use the sort of material that had to he used in these cases, but if, in the net result, conviction was established, and this evil tended to be reduced, it was quite justified in the case under review.

The jury found the accused not guilty.