Mrs. Haskell Appeals Against Her Conviction

Wanganui Chronicle, 29 June 1948, Page 6

Mrs. Haskell Appeals Against Her Conviction

UNFAIR AND IMPROPER PRACTICE OF COUNSEL NAMED AS ONE GROUND (P.A.) Wellington. June 28 The Court of Appeal, consisting of Justices Kennedy. Fair and Stanton, commenced hearing this morning the appeal of Pansy Louise Frances Haskell from her conviction on a charge of murder by a jury at Auckland on March 13. In her notice of appeal, Mrs. Has-, kell stated her grounds as:

(1) That a member of the jury. William Vincent de Paul Hogan, a traffic officer employed by the Auckland City Council, was by virtue of the provisions of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1933, a special constable and as such exempt from jury service; that Hogan applied for exemption when summonsed for service and was wrongfully refused exemption; that the trial judge (Mr. Justice Finlay) failed to discharge the jury and order a new trial when he became aware of these facts; and that as a result she was in law not tried by a full jury.

(2) That Mr. Justice Finlay misdirected the jury in his final address on certain matters of law and fact.

(3) That the verdict of guilty was obtained by both the unfair and improper practice of counsel for the prosecution at the trial in respect of his criticism of various statements made to her by the police.

(4) That the final address of Mr. Justice Finlay to the jury was in whole in such language and was delivered in such a manner as was intended to, and did in fact, support the contentions of prosecution and did not refer in any reasonable and proper way to the defence, ano did in fact result in »he jury returning a verdict of guilty.

(5) That the verdict was against the weight of evidence, and it had not been proved beyond reasonable doubt that she was guiltv.

Mr. M. Robinson (Auckland' was appearing for the appellant and Mr. V. R. Meredith and Mr. G. D. Speight (both of Auckland) are appearing for the Crown.

Opening the case for Haskell. Mr. Robinson said that the notice of appeal set forth matters believed to be correct at the time when it was filed but it had since been found that in fact no application for exemption was made by the juror Hogan, either personally or on his behalf by the superintendent of traffic, Auckland, and th<U as a special constable he was not disqualified from jury service. but merely exempted. He’ could not argue in the absence of an application for exemption that the first ground of the appeal should succeed.

PROOF OF IDENTITY Continuing his address. Mr. Robinson said he relied firstly on the submission that the verdict was against the weight of evidence. The evidence must be such that the jury was able to believe the prisoner guilty beyond reasonable doubt, i Proof of identity was very doubtful ’ and the decisions of the English 1 Court of Criminal Appeal showed that where identification was not • clearly proved, the verdict might be set aside on the ground that it was } against the weight of evidence, j Counsel’s second submission was that ' the summing up of Mr. Justice Fin- • lay at the trial was not satisfactory as the defence case had not been put , fairly by the Judge to the jury. Mr. Robinson then gave a short summary in the case, outlining the salient points or the evidence with i special reference to the position of , Rusden and Rix during the mornI ing ot the murder and pointing out I that the defence at the trial had ; maintained that Rusden and Rix had ian equal opportunity with accused to commit the murder. Mr. Robin--1 son criticised as scant the evidence lof identification of Mrs. Haskell by I Campbell and Mrs. Stubbs, who had claimed to see accused dressed as a 1 man in the ‘vicinity of Rusden’s house on the morning of the murder. During his address to the jury, Mr. Robinson said the Judge had drawn attention to the fact that accused, if not the principal might have been a party to the crime. No suggestion, however, had been made in the evidence adduced at the trial that accused had been other than the principal in the crime charged. The Jury should have been warned by the udge of the danger of deducing from the alleged earlier actions of the accused to procure the murder of Mrs. Rusden that accused was necessarily a party to the final act j of murder. Mr. Robinson further submitted that it was proved that Rusden and I Rix were equally capable of com- ' mitting the crime as was accused. The case against Rusden had not ( been fairly put to the jury by the Judge since many contentions and i doubtiul matters nad been stated to i the jury as accepted facts.

EVIDENCE OF RUSDEN The jury had not been adequately directed to the possibility of Rusden having committed the murder early lin the morning before leaving for I work. By accepting Rusden’s evidence, the jury fixed the time of the I crime against accused. No certainty should be attached to Rusden’s evidence in view of his conduct in lying i to his wife and the variance with the evidence of the other witnesses Faili ure to point out to the jury the de- ! pender.ee of the whole of the prose- ' cution case on Rusden’s uncorroborated evidence of the events at home before he left for work also affected I the defence case against Rix. The I defence maintained that Rix was the ; type of person to commit the crime i and had ample opportunity of doing so before leaving for w r ork since, on the morning of the crime, he arrived late for work. The fact that in the summing up. the time of death had been unwarrantedly fixed at after 8.30 a.m. prejudiced the defence that either Rusden or Rix might have committed the murder.