LIFE SENTENCE.

Western Star, 24 February 1939, Page 3

LIFE SENTENCE.

CASE OF AN EPILEPTIC

THIRTEEN JUDGES TO HEAR APPEAL.

The case of a young Edinburgh gardener, a subject of epileptic fits, who was sentenced t 0 penal servitude for lifo in connection with the death of a woman, is to be considered by a Bench ci 13 judges.

This was the decision of the Scottish .Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh, when James Boyd Kirkwood appealed against his sentence on the ground that it, was excessive. Kirkwood was originally charged with the murder of Jean Powell, whose body was found buried in the garden 'of a mansion house in the West End of Edinburgh. A plea, of guilty to culpable homicide was accepted. Mr Gordon Scott (for; Kirkwood) submitted that, in view of the whole circumstances and in particular the mental -condition of Kirkwood, the life sentence was so excessive as to be in itself a niisc.a-rria.ge of justice. The sentence was one of appalling severity. Ho bad no doubt the day would come when such a sentenice on a man of that mental strength would be regarded as barbarous.

Mr L. Hill Watson, advocate depute, said that what probably weighed with the judge at the trial was the exliaonlinary brutality of the crime. Tn addition. the medical cv:dencM was clear that this ma.u was of a type who might indulge in crime of that nature, without any warning, and one who wag most dangerous to the public.